PGA Tour star misses out on place at The Open in heartbreaking fashion

Amateur golf star Luke Clanton missed out on earning a spot at this month’s Open Championship in agonising fashion having finished in a tie for second at last week’s John Deere Classic.

Clanton wrote himself into the PGA Tour history books on Sunday, as he became the first amateur to secure back-to-back top-10 finishes on Tour since 1958 thanks to his performances at the John Deere Classic and Rocket Mortgage Classic one week earlier.

He ended his week at TPC Deere Run in impressive fashion on Sunday, carding an superb bogey-free eight-under-par 63 to move him to 24-under for the tournament, four shots back of champion Davis Thompson.

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There was plenty on the line at the event, with the top-two finishers not already qualified earning a spot for the final major of the season in next week’s Open Championship. One of those spots went to Thompson, and whilst Clanton did enough to finish in second, he was not the other lucky recipient of the major spot.

Having tied as runner-up alongside Michael Thorbjornsen and C.T. Pan, the vacant Open spot went to the latter instead of Clanton due to his superior positioning in the Official World Golf Ranking. Prior to the tournament Pan sat 144th in the world rankings, whilst Clanton was 599th.

With Clanton already finished on championship Sunday, Pan was required to make par to book his trip to Royal Troon, something the amateur was not even aware of post-round. Speaking about his near-Open miss, he said: “No. I had no clue that The Open was even a qualifier.

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“I was just playing golf. I heard about that at CBS and she told me that CT needed to make Par. I think he did, so he’s in The Open. Again, incredible week for sure.” Clanton was then asked whether his schedule would have allowed him to make the trip to Scotland if he had qualified, to which he replied: “You got to play The Open Championship for sure.

“That’s no joke. It’s cool to come close to making it of course, but I didn’t realise you could make it so it was awesome.” There was of course still plenty for Clanton to be happy about, especially having secured historic back-to-back top-10 finishes in his last to Tour events.

Remarkably though, this was another feat he was unaware of. “I didn’t even know that either,” he said. “I promise you, man, I’m pretty simple when it comes to all this. That’s awesome to even realise that. Making a little bit more history is pretty sweet no doubt. Couple more events coming up so hopefully we can win one.”