Castano benefits from Norman withdrawal

Two-time winner Greg Norman has withdrawn from the Open championship and been replaced by last season’s European Tour rookie of the year Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano.

The 51-year-old Australian had further surgery on his right knee in February and had hoped to play this week’s US Seniors Open, the Open and then the Senior British Open.

But his return to action is not likely to be before August now.

“My knee is fine,” he said. “My game just isn’t where I want it to be and the last thing I want to do is take a spot away from another deserving professional.

“Now I can focus on my game and get ready to play some tournaments later this summer.”

Norman won the Open at Turnberry in 1986 and Sandwich in 1993 and made the cut at St Andrews last year in his first tournament after a back operation in March.

He was then third in the Senior British Open at Royal Aberdeen, but was back in hospital for knee surgery in October.

Fernandez-Castano failed to come through the European qualifying tournament at Sunningdale last week but the 25-year-old from Madrid, already twice a winner on the European Tour, takes Norman’s spot by virtue of being the next highest non-exempt player on the world rankings.

Three players higher than Fernandez-Castano – Japan’s Shigeki Maruyama and Americans Billy Mayfair and Jason Bohn – would have been given the place if only they had entered for the Open.