(Memorial winner J.T. Poston is a lock).<\/a><\/p>\nEven so, it\u2019s not close to the U.S Open ideal of a 50-50 split. That had been the sweet spot for years until the USGA responded to the changing landscape in golf and went away from its roots by trying to get all the right players.<\/p>\n
The only player the U.S. Open probably missed out on over the years was Justin Rose in 2010 when he won the Memorial and moved to No. 33 in the world, two weeks after the cutoff for what was then top 50. The next year, the USGA added a second deadline the week before the Open so that wouldn\u2019t happen again.<\/p>\n
But over the past few years, the USGA felt it should recognize LIV Golf by adding two spots \u2014 a leading player from last year (Joaquin Niemann) and this year (Lucas Herbert). Nothing would have kept either one from trying to qualify.<\/p>\n
It has added five leading players from the FedEx Cup this year (Sudarshan Yellamaraju among them), two players from the Race to Dubai in 2025 (Laurie Canter and Adrien Saddier) and one this year (Jayden Schaper). There\u2019s still a 36-hole qualifier in London that offered seven spots.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Junior Amateur winner began getting an exemption in 2018, the NCAA champion in 2023. There\u2019s now a place for the top player on the Korn Ferry Tour last year.<\/p>\n
Each addition gets the U.S. Open further away from its roots.<\/p>\n
All of them are quality players, and all of them certainly earned the right to be there based on performance, the key word when golf throws out \u201cmeritocracy.\u201d All of them could have qualified, just like four-time All-American Ben James and PGA Tour player Keith Mitchell. <\/p>\n
\u201cToday is such an important day for us,\u201d John Bodenhamer, the USGA\u2019s chief championships officer, said Monday night as the qualifying at 10 sites across the continent were winding down. \u201cOpenness and qualifying and earning your way into our national championship is part of our DNA.\u201d<\/p>\n
It still is. But it\u2019s not as evident as it used to be. This should get the attention of the USGA, if it hasn\u2019t already. <\/p>\n
There\u2019s no need to go down the path of the British Open from just over a decade go when it established the \u201cOpen Qualifying Series\u201d at tournaments around the world. <\/p>\n
It has been effective in identifying a good field through performance, but it\u2019s not the same as proving it over 36 holes. Players show up at tournaments to win \u2014 a place in the British Open often is a consolation prize (Poston managed to get both at Muirfield Village on Sunday).<\/p>\n
Now the British Open offers 20 qualifying spots at four venues, plus something called a \u201cLast Chance Qualifier\u201d to be held over 18 holes on Monday of The Open at Royal Birkdale.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Open still has a right to boast of being the most open of Open championships around the world. It would do well not to get too far away from that. There\u2019s really no risk of missing out on a player whom the golfing public wouldn\u2019t know was missing.<\/p>\n
There would be more opportunity to see Russell and Giuseppe Puebla, Nos. 1 and 2 in the American junior ranking, be among three amateurs who qualified in Florida; to see Andrew Putnam at No. 84 in the world earn the final spot Tuesday morning in a nine-hole playoff in Oregon over Spencer Tibbits, who has no world ranking.<\/p>\n
Monday brought the joy of Vaughn Harber, an Ohio State sophomore who went 5 under over his last five holes to get into a playoff and advance to his first U.S. Open. There were other stories like him. The U.S. Open needs more moments like that, not fewer. It\u2019s part of its DNA.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
On The Fringe analyzes the biggest topics in golf during the season. AP golf: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/golf<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two players going into their senior year of high school are playing in the U.S. Open next week,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[275124,203674,62312,26797,301825,301515,427,45318,275117,74135,301826,15549,31404,192626,218513,59227,25761,25858,301520,99,257199,428,62863],"class_list":["post-696753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-adrien-saddier","tag-andrew-putnam","tag-ben-james","tag-billy-horschel","tag-david-fay","tag-giuseppe-puebla","tag-golf","tag-j-t-poston","tag-jayden-schaper","tag-joaquin-niemann","tag-john-bodenhamer","tag-justin-rose","tag-keith-mitchell","tag-laurie-canter","tag-lucas-herbert","tag-miles-russell","tag-on-the-fringe","tag-sam-burns","tag-spencer-tibbits","tag-sports","tag-sudarshan-yellamaraju","tag-tennis","tag-u-s-open-mens-golf-championships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}