Ryan Van Velzen

Makes his Open debut as one of the five qualifiers from the new Federation Ranking list exemption category.

The 22-year-old, son of former touring professional Rob Van Velzen, won last year’s Limpopo Championship in his rookie season on the Sunhine Tour. The event was reduced to 54 holes due to rain and when he completed his third-round 68 he trailed Jaco Prinsloo by one, but his fellow South African double-bogeyed the par five closing hole.

“It’s incredible – awesome,” said Van Velzen. “This changes everything for me.”

He was only just inside the game’s top 1,000 at the time, but then came three successive top-five finishes, including joint-third at the Tour Championship, and in December he was joint runner-up behind Dean Burmester at the Investec South African Open.

A month later he fired two closing scores of 64 to take the Mediclinic Invitational by four and two weeks after that he lost a play-off to Mikael Lindberg at the Cape Town Open.

With that he progressed into the leading 300 on the world rankings and in May he played his first major at the PGA Championship.