U.S. Open: Monday final sectional qualifier rounds preview

Columbus, Ohio

120 players for TBD spots

The Columbus sectional qualifying site annually boasts a PGA TOUR caliber field given its proximity to the Memorial Tournament 20 miles down the road that concludes the day prior.

This site features the most spots into the U.S. Open field but if you get one of them, you’ve earned it.

Major champions headed for Brookside G&CC and Lakes G&CC include Vijay Singh, Keegan Bradley, Stewart Cink, Ben Curtis, Tom Lehman and Davis Love III and Geoff Ogilvy. I think I see a few Hall of Famers in there.

Did I mention former world No. 1 Luke Donald will be in the field? How about U.S. Amateur champions Kelly Kraft, Curtis Luck or Bryson DeChambeau?

The Barbasol Championship  wants to know what it has to do to get a field like this, for heaven’s sake.

Other PGA TOUR and European Tour winners in the field include Mackenzie Hughes, Robert Streb, Gonzalo Fernández-Castaño, Matt Every, Aaron Baddeley, KJ Choi, Martin Laird, Nick Watney, Johnson Wagner, Alex Cejka, DA Points, Danny Lee, Rod Pampling, Billy Mayfair, Ted Potter Jr., John Huh, Camilo Villegas and David Lingmerth.

Phew.

There are a number of great young players assembled, too. Former No. 1 junior and current University of Texas member Scottie Scheffler, Scheffler’s teammate, Gavin Hall; Ollie Schniederjans and Cheng-Tsung Pan are a few to watch for. Scheffler and Hall are teeing it up as two of 26 amateurs in the field.

What’s cool about these U.S. Open qualifying sites is the structure of the tee times. The USGA usually groups the known commodities like your Singhs and Lehmans with lesser known players.

Take Domenic Mancinelli, for example. The No. 3,240-ranked amateur on the Grand Valley State University golf team will play alongside former PLAYERS champ, KJ Choi, and former Open Champion, Stewart Cink. No pressure, Domenic!