2017 British Open field: Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth lead qualifiers at Royal Birkdale

The Open Championship has arrived! It is the oldest, most unique major championship in the game. It is also the most diverse and international field of all the majors thanks to an almost year-long qualifying process that offers berths into the field on all six inhabited continents.

The Open Qualifying Series, as it is now officially branded, started last November at the Australian Open, one of the premier events Down Under. And it ended late Sunday night in the middle of America at the John Deere Classic in the Quad Cities region, where Bryson DeChambeau made a furious back nine charge to earn his first ever berth into The Open.

DeChambeau rounds the field out at an even 156 players on Monday morning. That’s where the field will stay, matching the U.S. Open and PGA Championship as the largest field in golf. The Masters takes a much different approach and starts to have a panic attack if their field may approach and exceed triple digits. And if someone drops out at the Masters, there are no alternates waiting in the wings to fill in and take the spot. The invitees are who they are and they do not change.

At the British Open, alternates are at the ready, including James Hahn, who left San Francisco for one long-ass flight to Manchester without a guarantee that he’ll ever hit a ball that counts at Birkdale.

There are no high-profile injury concerns so Hahn may be on a plane back Thursday before hitting a shot, but you have to admire his efforts.

While there are many overlapping ways in which a field is built at the majors (e.g. winners of the other majors from the past five years), each has their own unique swath of exemptions that make up its identity. As noted above, the Masters has its exclusiveness and small size. The U.S. Open fills up half its field with sectional qualifiers — a group of 70 or so whittled down from about 10,000 longshots playing at different sites across the country. The PGA reserves a chunk for its membership, the PGA pros giving lessons at a local club or course near you.

And then there’s The Open, using its months-long process to build a field all across the world. The other majors usually have somewhere between 15-20 exemptions, or ways to get in the field. The Open has 40(!) different methods.

The result, for American fans myopically watching just PGA Tour golf, is a field with many international names you may not have heard of before or come from farther down the world rankings. The top 50 in the world all get a spot, so the stars are, of course, always here. But the depth may not be there compared to a PGA Championship, which ensures the full top 100 get a spot in their field.

Below are all 156 players at the start of Open week. This could change due to an injury or two. Each name is listed in the order where it first appeared on The Open’s exemptions list. So Rory McIlroy, who qualified in eight different ways, is listed under the first exemption they set forth — past Open winners under the age of 60. Here’s your full field for the 146th Open Championship at Royal Birkdale: