No sooner has the second Major of the year, the PGA Championship, concluded, that attention is beginning to turn to the third, the US Open at Pinehurst No.2, with final qualifying taking place across three venues on Monday.
Some big names, including LIV golfers Sergio Garcia, Abraham Ancer and Patrick Reed, are also hoping to earn a spot at next month’s event via that route.
Fireballs GC captain Garcia will be hoping for a repeat of 2023, where he came through final qualifying to reach the US Open for the 24th consecutive year after shooting nine under over 36 holes.
For Ancer, who is also a Fireballs GC player, qualifying wasn’t as big an issue back then as he was still comfortably inside the world’s top 60 needed to earn a spot three weeks before the tournament began, and finished T54.
Despite Reed’s five-year exemption to the Major having expired after his win at the 2018 Masters, he also qualified last year thanks to his world ranking, and finished T56 at Los Angeles Country Club.
Patrick Reed is one of several LIV Golf players in final qualifying for the US Open
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Because LIV Golf isn’t able to offer world ranking points, all three players have dropped significantly in the rankings since then, with Garcia now 731st, Reed 92nd and Ancer in 273rd, leaving final qualifying as their most realistic route to the tournament.
All three are playing at Dallas Athletic Club in Texas, where they are hoping to be among 11 qualifiers at the end of what promises to be a gruelling day. Garcia and Ancer will go into it with freshness as neither competed in the PGA Championship at Valhalla, although Reed did, and finished T53.
Abraham Ancer is hoping for his fifth US Open start
(Image credit: Getty Images)
The trio are far from the only big names taking part in final qualifying. Another Fireballs GC player, Eugenio Lopez-Chacarra, is also playing in Dallas, along with fellow LIV golfers Danny Lee, Kevin Na and Caleb Surrat.
DP World Tour pro Sebastian Soderberg, who hit a hole-in-one at the PGA Championship on the way to a finish of T68, plays too, as does four-time PGA Tour winner Aaron Baddeley, Full Swing star Joel Dahmen and Ryan Moore, who has five PGA Tour wins.
Japan also hosted a qualifier earlier in the day, where another LIV golfer, Scott…
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