R&A Looks at US for
Open Qualifying

The Royal and Ancient Golf Club may break with tradition and add a fifth qualifying course for the Open Championship - in Chicago.

The R&A has petitioned America's PGA Tour to develop a plan so that players like Brad Faxon and Gary Nicklaus would no longer have to fly back and forth across the Atlantic with no guarantee of qualification, as they did this year.

Peter Dawson, Secretary of the R&A, said: "We are concerned that some US players who don't qualify through normal exemption criteria choose not to come to final qualifying here. In order to get the best field in the world, perhaps that would improve if we had some kind of qualification system."

Dawson confirmed that a US qualifier for the Open could take place in the Western Open, effectively creating a tournament within a tournament.