It’s the American dream — at least for many elite-level golfers. For those who think big, it doesn’t get much better than competing in the U.S. Open.
That being the case, it’s not surprising that more than 9,000 players submitted entries for each of the last two Opens.
But the story is a little different this year, and the qualifying process in Colorado has been hit by a double-whammy of sorts.
The USGA recently announced that the number of accepted entries for next month’s U.S. Open at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md., was 8,300. That’s down 752 from a year ago and is the lowest number since 2003.
The drop is even more significant for the three U.S. Open Local Qualifying tournaments that will be held in Colorado over the next two weeks. After 239 golfers entered last year’s Local Qualifiers in the state, the number has dipped to 190 this time around.
So what gives?
Pete Lis, director of rules and competitions for the CGA, believes the answer is pretty straightforward.
Lis said Monday the issue is twofold regarding Colorado. First, the USGA has mandated that, starting this year, all competitors in U.S. Open Local Qualifying must use irons with grooves that conform to the same rules that tour professionals started abiding by last year. The new conforming grooves have less volume and less-sharp edges, and they were mandatory last year in the U.S. Open Sectional Qualifying, but not for Locals.
The second issue in Colorado is that this is the first year in several decades that a Sectional Qualifying tournament won’t be held in the state. Now, those who advance from Local Qualifying will have to travel almost 800 miles from the Denver area to the closest Sectional site. Before this year, Columbine Country Club in Littleton regularly hosted a Sectional Qualifier.
The additional travel is a deterrent to some potential U.S. Open entrants from Colorado, but the grooves issue may be equally so. In fact, Lis said a couple of entrants in Colorado-based Local Qualifying tournaments withdrew after he double-checked that players knew they would have to have the newly conforming grooves.
Some golfers aren’t competing in the qualifying because they aren’t yet comfortable with the new grooves — though they were required at Sectionals starting last year. Others may be put off by the prospect of having to buy or acquire a set of conforming irons at this point. (The new grooves won’t be required at most national amateur tournaments until 2014. Professionals, and amateurs with a handicap index of 1.4 or less, can enter the U.S. Open.)
As Thomas J. O’Toole Jr., chairman of the USGA Championship Committee, noted earlier this year, “The implementation of this condition of competition at the local qualifying stage of the U.S. Open is significant.”
A total of 14 competitors in the Colorado Local Qualifiers will advance to Sectionals. Forty-two players at the Local Qualifier at Desert Hawk at Pueblo West on May 9 will vie for three Sectional spots. At Collindale in Fort Collins, five Sectional berths will be up for grabs on May 16, with 64 in the field. And on that same day, 84 golfers will compete for six Sectional spots at The Heritage at Westmoor in Westminster.
Among those playing at Desert Hawk is Steve Irwin, son of three-time U.S. Open champion Hale Irwin; Tom Glissmeyer, who qualified for the U.S. Open as a 16-year-old in 2003; and Utah Open champion Nick Mason. The field at The Heritage at Westmoor includes 2009 HealthOne Colorado Open champion Derek Tolan; Scott Petersen, who won on the Nationwide Tour in 2000; and 2010 Enstrom’s Rocky Mountain Open winner Ben Portie. Among the competitors at Collindale are 2009 Canadian Tour Championship winner James Love and CGA Stroke Play champion Wyndham Clark, one of the top-15-ranked junior players in the U.S.
A total of 111 U.S. Open Local Qualifying tournaments are scheduled, along with 13 Sectionals. For those who beat the odds and advance through both the Local and Sectional Qualifying tournaments, they’ll compete at Congressional June 16-19.
