Can Augusta form help predict this year's Open winner at St Andrews?

Golf writer Geoff Shackleford noted in a 2010 feature for Golf Digest International that St Andrews "influenced the genetic code of several key holes" at Augusta National and when the Georgia layout was designed and constructed, the Old Course was very much on their minds.

Ballesteros, Faldo and Johnson have shown that those rather unexpected historical ties could mean something. But does the logic behind it extend further? Is there more correlating form between the two par 72s than we imagine.

Congratulations to Zach Johnson, 2015 Champion Golfer of the Year.#TheOpen pic.twitter.com/QPtFm4xV45

T4th Jason Day - tied 2nd 2011 Masters, 3rd 2013

So the top 11 players in the 2015 Open at St Andrews contain the Green Jacket winners from 2007, 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017.

The top six in the 2010 Open at St Andrews were Oosthuizen, Lee Westwood, Rory McIlroy, Henrik Stenson, Paul Casey and Retief Goosen.

Tiger Woods won that year. He had four Green Jackets at the time and has gone on to add two more.

Another double Masters champion, Bernhard Langer (1985 and 1993), tied for fifth with two fellow Augusta winners, Sergio (2017) and Vijay Singh (2000).

Tiger cruised to an eight-shot victory in the 2000 Open at St Andrews, three years on from his 12-shot romp at the 1997 Masters.

Crucially, the vast majority of high finishers on the Old Course had already shown they could thrive at Augusta so Masters form can be a predictive tool for this year's Open Championship.

That's quite a stat and good news for current Masters champion Scottie Scheffler.

Scottie Scheffler, 2022 Masters champion. #themasters pic.twitter.com/IJyVgjFfxJ

Starting from 1963, only three of the last 10 Open winners at St Andrews hadn't already tasted Masters glory.

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