The 1996 Open Championship proved to be a significant tournament in the career of Tiger Woods, with the event at Royal Lytham and St Annes proving to be his final major as an amateur.
Tiger Woods would enjoy an outstanding week in Lancashire. He proved to be the only amateur to make the cut and finished in a tie for 22nd. It would prove to be his best result in a major up until he won the 1997 Masters by 12 shots.
Woods would actually make a bit of history at the 1996 Open Championship. His score of 281 for the week meant that he tied Ian Pyman for the lowest score by an amateur since the Silver Medal was introduced in 1949.
That record would stand for another 19 years until The Open Championship was contested at St Andrews in 2015.
The golfer who broke the record for the lowest score by an amateur in Open Championship history
All eyes were on Jordan Spieth heading to The Old Course a decade ago. Spieth had won the first two majors of 2015, so there was plenty of talk about whether he could become the first player to ever win all four of the current majors in the same calendar year.
Spieth would come up just short, with a bogey on his penultimate hole meaning that he missed out on the playoff, which Zach Johnson would win, by just one shot.
Just below him on the leaderboard however, his namesake was able to etch his name into the pantheon of Open Championship history.
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Jordan Niebrugge finished tied for sixth alongside the likes of Sergio Garcia, Justin Rose, and Danny Willett on 11 under par for the week.
For much of the week, it appeared that Paul Dunne was on course to not only win the Silver Medal, but perhaps lift the Claret Jug itself. Dunne was tied for the lead after three rounds before falling away with a 78 on Sunday.
That presented Niebrugge with the opportunity to finish as the low amateur. And with a score of 277, the American not only broke the record for the lowest score by a Silver Medal winner, but he actually posted the lowest score by an amateur in the entire history of The Open Championship.
What happened to Jordan Niebrugge after the 2015 Open Championship at St Andrews
Niebrugge had an outstanding amateur career, playing alongside the likes of Justin Thomas, Max Homa, and Bryson DeChambeau across his two Walker Cup appearances.
However, his most recent appearance on the PGA Tour came back in 2017. In fact, the 31-year-old played just 12 PGA Tour events, and made three cuts along the way.
He was unable to make the weekend at The Open Championship in 2016, but did finish in a tie for 35th at the US Open the following year.
In 2018, he won on PGA Tour Canada. But it appears that his focus has now moved away from his own game, with Niebrugge named as assistant coach of the men’s golf team at Marquette University in Wisconsin in 2024.
It is perhaps not the path that he would have expected to head down a decade ago. But as his comments after the final round in 2015 show, Niebrugge achieved something at arguably the most iconic golf course in the world which can never be taken away from him.
He said: “[Winning the Silver Medal] would mean the world to me. I would rank it up for sure the top accomplishment I’ve had so far, just the Silver Medal in a major championship, especially at St. Andrews. It’s definitely a dream come true.”
