Five years for a top ten finish! Looks like Watson can say farewell in 2015 at St. Andrews unless he grabs a top ten in the next five years, which is very possible.

For Immediate Publication

AMENDMENTS MADE TO ENTRY CRITERIA AHEAD OF 2010 OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

16 November 2009, St Andrews, Scotland: The R&A has announced changes to the entry criteria ahead of The Open Championship’s 150th Anniversary, to be played at St Andrews from 11 – 18 July 2010.

A new exemption category has been introduced for the 2010 Open. Condition F(4) exempts from qualifying any past Open Champions who finished in the top 10 and ties in any of the previous five Open Championships, thus effectively providing them with a five year exemption into the Championship.
 
“We have introduced this exemption as a direct response to seeing two of our great Open Champions, both in their fifties, challenging to win our championship these last two years,” explained Peter Dawson, Chief Executive of The R&A. “We rightly reduced the age of exemption for past champions from 65 to 60 two years ago and our intention was never to remove players still at the top of their game from competing in The Open.”

Competitors at The Open Championship; International Final Qualifying - Australasia, Asia, America and Europe; and at Local Final Qualifying will be subject to the new clubface groove regulations as per Decision 4-1/1 of Decisions on the Rules of Golf.