The 100thOpen de France will welcome one of the strongest fields in the tournament’s rich history when the majority of Europe’s biggest names descend up Le Golf National in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines in three weeks’ time.
World Number Three and four-time Major champion Rory McIlroy, along with Masters champion Danny Willett, will headline a superb cast which includes nine Major winners, 21 European Ryder Cup players and 31 of the top 100 in the Official World Golf Ranking.
Of the other Major winners set to star in Continental Europe's oldest national open, Martin Kaymer and Graeme McDowell have both lifted the Stoïber Cup, presented to the Open de France champion: Kaymer back in 2009, and McDowell twice in a row in 2013 and 2014.
Europe’s Ryder Cup captain Darren Clarke, Y.E. Yang, Paul Lawrie and Mike Weir, all of whom boast one Major title to their résumé, will be joined by three-time Major champion Padraig Harrington and former World Number Ones Luke Donald and Lee Westwood.
Among those from the World's Top 50 are the English trio of Chris Wood, winner of the recent BMW PGA Championship; Matthew Fitzpatrick, the Nordea Masters champion, and Andy Sullivan, a three-time winner on the 2015 European Tour.
Thai Kiradech Aphibarnrat, a two-time winner last season, Spaniard Rafa Cabrera-Bello and Dane Søren Kjeldsen, who both enjoyed an excellent first half of the season; Swede David Lingmerth, the 2015 Memorial champion on the U.S. PGA Tour, and of course French Open defending champion Bernd Wiesberger from Austria will also bring their considerable talent to the 100thOpen de France.
Victor Dubuisson spearhead the French challenge alongside Alexander Levy, Grégory Bourdy, Grégory Havret, Raphaël Jacquelin, Julien Quesne and Gary Stal, among others.
Those star names will do battle over the Albatros course, which will be played for the first time in the lay-out which will stage The 2018 Ryder Cup after ten months of improvement works in advance of France hosting golf’s greatest team competition for the first time.
Given the historic nature of this year’s centenary edition of this year’s French Open, coupled with the fact the tournament clashes with the WGC – Bridgestone Invitational, the winner at Le Golf National on July 3 will collect 64 points towards the Ryder Cup World Points List and one million points towards the European Points List, with subsequent points also increased for other players making the cut.
The 100thOpen de France will also count as two events played in the 2016 Race to Dubai.
