[PHOTO: Gregory Shamus]

Cam Davis is familiar with the waiting game when it comes to the Open Championship. A year ago, the 29-year-old Sydneysider was the first alternate in the championship. He hung around the practice green at Royal Liverpool for most of the opening round, hoping a player might withdraw and he would get a chance to play in the championship for just the second time in his career. Unfortunately for him, a spot never opened.

Today at Royal Troon, Davis again will be on the grounds at The Open as first alternate, hoping once more that fate might eventually allow him to find a way onto the timesheet. Yet this time, Davis must see not one but two players withdraw before he has a chance to gain entry into the championship, the result of an unusual situation with Open qualifying that has the recent Rocket Mortgage Classic winner stewing.

“I’m having a hard time handling it,” Davis said on Wednesday after finishing up a practice round with Jason Day and Denny McCarthy.

His anger is fuelled by the fact that while a typical Open field consists of 156 players, for just the third time in the past 30 years the number of players who qualified exceeded that number, with 159 meeting one of the 27 criteria for Troon as outlined by the R&A. However, when former winner David Duval withdrew last weekend, the R&A did not fill the spot from the alternate list. Moreover, officials let all those on the alternate list know that they would not replace any additional WDs until the field dipped below 156, which the R&A deems its preferred field size. So when news broke yesterday that Sebastian Soderberg had dropped out, bringing the field to 157, Davis still remained on the outside looking in.

What has Davis frustrated is that the R&A will have two tee-times with two players mixed in with the 61 three-ball pairings come the start of play. Why not round out either of the twosome groups with a third player?

“Their reasoning is they say 156 is their number they’re trying to reach and anything over that is more than they want,” Davis said. “At the moment it is sounding like it’s entirely a personal preference for them rather than actually a number they have to reach. The fact the field was set, they had a certain set of numbers, they had tee-times set for those people and someone has withdrawn and they won’t let me take that spot, I feel like is not super-fair treatment of someone who has made their way out here and a tee-time has opened up.”

The reason behind it would appear to be logistics, R&A chief executive Martin Slumbers noting during his Wednesday press conference ahead of the championship that the opening two rounds at The Open are already long days with 156 players, let alone with any extras. At Troon, the first group is scheduled to tee off at 6:35am with the last at 4:27pm. Meanwhile, the R&A said that it had been in regular contact with those on the alternate list and had been clear in briefing them about the process in place in the event of players withdrawing.

How exactly did 159 players qualify for a 156-player field in the first place? According to Slumbers, it was a by-product of a decision to improve opportunities for players to earn a post in the field via the R&A’s four Final Qualifying events held two weeks prior to the championship.

“We made a commitment quite a while ago that we would give a minimum of 16 spots to FQ,” Slumbers said on Wednesday. “That was on an assumption about who would come in through exemptions and which of our past champions will play.”

While the R&A recognised that the field for Troon was likely to exceed 156, a decision was made to keep the number of spots available in Final Qualifying.

“In prior years we probably would have cut the 16 FQs down to 13, but we didn’t,” Slumbers said. “We stayed with our commitment, and that’s why we’re just slightly over. But we don’t want to do this as a matter of course; 156 is the number. It’s a long enough day on Thursday and Friday, as all of you know, and it’s going to be a little bit longer.””

Just three weeks ago, Davis won his second career PGA Tour title with his victory at the Rocket Mortgage event. That performance bumped him to 37th on the world ranking (he’s 41st in the most recent ranking), five weeks too late to qualify under the R&A exemption for top 50 players in the OWGR.

“I understand fully I didn’t meet the criteria to get straight into the tournament,” said Davis, who finished T-39 in his lone Open start at Carnoustie in 2018. “That’s not the point I’m trying to make. The point I’m trying to make is that spots are opening up once the field has been set and they’re making a point of not letting me take them until at least two more have pulled out.”

Davis said he’ll be at the course ahead of the first tee-time and begin the long wait. Again. “That’s all I guess I can do,” he said. “It’s a frustrating situation considering I’ve been in good form.”

One more reason for Davis to be a bit bitter about the situation stems from the 2022 Open at St Andrews. Yet again, Davis was on the alternate list, but further down the pecking order. He says that R&A officials told him it was unlikely he would get into the tournament, so he didn’t make the trip. As it turned out, there were enough withdrawals that his number would have come up.