Here’s the British Open Playoff Format If Needed Sunday at Royal Troon

The oldest major has used a four-hole aggregate for years, with the last coming in 2015.

The British Open has a four-hole aggregate playoff format. / Jack Gruber-USA TODAY Sports

Should the 152nd British Open go to a playoff, its combatants will see quite a bit more of Royal Troon.

The Open uses a four-hole aggregate playoff format, the longest of all the majors. At Royal Troon, if needed, those holes will be the 1st, 2nd, 17th and 18th. Lowest score over the four holes wins, and if there’s a tie after that a sudden-death format is used.

The last playoff at the oldest major was in 2015, when Zach Johnson defeated Marc Leishman and Louis Oosthuizen at St. Andrews. Before that, Stewart Cink bested 59-year-old Tom Watson in 2009 at Turnberry. 

Royal Troon hosted the first four-hole aggregate playoff at the 1989 Open, when Mark Calcavecchia defeated Aussies Wayne Grady and Greg Norman.

The most recent playoff in any major was 2022 at the PGA Championship, when Justin Thomas defeated Will Zalatoris in a three-hole aggregate at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Okla. Its format was first used in 2000, where Tiger Woods defeated Bob May in a epic duel at Valhalla Golf Club in Kentucky in the midst of his “Tiger Slam.”

The last playoff in the Masters was in 2017, won by Sergio Garcia on the first sudden-death hole over Justin Rose. The Masters is the only major to employ the sudden-death format.

The U.S. Open hasn’t had a playoff since the famous 2008 edition at Torrey Pines where Woods defeated Rocco Mediate in an 18-hole Monday playoff. The 18-hole playoff has been since retired by the United States Golf Association, but its new two-hole format has not been needed yet.