The Open: Matt Fitzpatrick and Danny Willett lead strong Yorkshire contingent at St Andrews

Six players from the Broad Acres will contest the world’s oldest major championship representing a wide range of experience and a unique slice of geography.

There are two major winners among them in Danny Willett and Matt Fitzpatrick, two amateurs in Sam Bairstow and Barclay Brown, and two professionals in John Parry and Marcus Armitage.

Such is the prominence of golfers from these parts that four come from Sheffield alone (Willett, Fitzpatrick, Bairstow and Brown), while only three Scottish players are competing at an Open hosted in their own country. And as recent history tells us, Yorkshire golfers are not in these fields merely to make up the numbers.

Fitzpatrick tees off as one of the favourites after becoming men’s golf’s most recent major champion following his nerveless win at the US Open at Brookline last month.

The 27-year-old was not in the field the last time St Andrews hosted the Open in 2015, having only turned professional 13 months earlier, but he famously won the silver medal for leading amateur on his debut at Muirfield nine years ago.

A tie for 20th at Portrush in 2019 is his best Open result in six appearances, but he warmed up for St Andrews with a tie for sixth in the Scottish Open and could take inspiration from his pairing with Tiger Woods for the first two rounds.

Willett also knows how to win a major, doing so six years ago at Augusta. Indeed, only three Englishmen have won majors this century, two of them hailing from Sheffield.

While Willett has been unable to sustain long periods of positive form since the run that took him to his Masters victory in 2016, he still has the ability to pop up and challenge every so often, as he did at St Andrews last October when winning the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, his most recent tournament win.

He was also in contention for the Claret Jug the last time time the Open was staged at the home of golf in 2015.

How Brown and Bairstow fare will be fascinating. Both may be amateurs but they have a professional mindset, witnessed in the calm manner of Brown’s qualification from a field of seasoned professionals at Hollinwell earlier this month and Bairstow’s resolve in matching the achievement at St Annes Old Links, the course where 10 days earlier he had lost the final of the British Amateur.

Both have the potential to be in contention for the silver medal.

It is heartening to see Parry back in a major field. For the 35-year-old from Harrogate, a winner on the European Tour as long ago as 2010, this is his Open Championship debut having flitted between the Challenge Tour, the EuroPro and even the 2020protour in recent years.

He twice qualified for US Opens in the last decade.

And Armitage who plays out of Howley Hall in Morley is back at the Open for the second straight year as he looks to continue establishing himself on the DP World Tour where he was a winner last year.