Open Championship cut rules: How many players make the cut?

Breaking down the Open Championship cut rules for the 2023 British Open to see how many players will make the cut at Royal Liverpool. 

One of the most fascinating aspects of The Open Championship among many is the scores that can be put up and, subsequently, the cut line that ends up coming around after the second round. Depending on conditions at the course, we can sometimes see the cut line well over par. But if the wind and rain are benign, then scores and the cut line are typically much lower.

What will we have at Royal Liverpool Golf Club? Early returns say that The Open Championship might see something toward the latter. But the thing about links golf and weather in the United Kingdom is that things can turn on a dime in terms of conditions.

Rather than a number, though, players know that the Open Championship cut rules dictate simply being on the right part of the leaderboard. But how many players make the cut at The Open? Let’s take a look.

Open Championship cut rules: How many players make the cut at Royal Liverpool?

The Open Championship cut rules will have the Top 70 players and ties on the leaderboard after the first two rounds playing the weekend from the 156 total players teeing it up for the week. These are the same cut rules that apply for the PGA Championship and that used to apply to PGA Tour events, though the latter moved to Top 65 and ties in recent years.

As for The Masters and US Open, they have smaller cuts for smaller overall fields with the Top 50 and ties moving to the weekend at Augusta and then the Top 60 and ties playing the third and fourth rounds at the US Open.

What was the Open Championship cut line in 2022 and 2021?

With The Open Championship moving annually, there is only so much to glean from previous cut lines at The Open. However, we can still look at where it’s been recently.

The cut line at the British Open in 2022 at The Old Course at St. Andrews was at Even after the first two rounds, which is a bit surprising given the fact that Cameron Smith eventually won the Claret Jug with a final tally of -20. As for The Open in 2021 at Royal St. George’s where Collin Morikawa eventually won, the cut line ended up at +1 after Friday’s rounds.

So perhaps we can expect the same at Royal Liverpool, with the cut line hovering around even par.

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