The US Open is getting away from its roots with a shrinking number of qualifiers

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Two players going into their senior year of high school are playing in the U.S. Open next week, along with another teenager who is headed off to college.

The field for Shinnecock Hills includes T.K. Kim, a 35-year-old who was born in South Korea, raised on Maui, played college golf at Boise State and will get ready for his first U.S. Open by playing two Oklahoma mini-tour events in Muskogee and Duncan.

Billy Horschel has 10 worldwide wins and more than $42.5 million in career PGA Tour earnings, not including his $10 million bonus from winning the FedEx Cup. His path to Shinnecock Hills was no different from 17-year-old Miles Russell or Arni Sveinsson, who will make history as the first player from Iceland in the U.S. Open.

This is what makes the U.S. Open stand out from the other four majors. It gets called the toughest test in golf — sometimes too tough — but it prides itself on being the most “open” of any Open.

David Fay, who spent 21 years as the USGA executive director, once said, "It’s not the best field in golf. It never pretended to be. It’s the most democratic championship.”

Fay might raise his eyebrows when he looks at the numbers now.

By the time the USGA was done handing out exemptions this year — based on performance at the PGA Tour, European tour and LIV Golf — only 62 spots were available in final qualifying. That included just 43 spots on Monday, which still tries to sell itself as the “Longest Day in Golf” even with the shrinking numbers.

Ten years ago, the 156-man field at Oakmont included 80 players who had to earn their way there through 36-hole qualifiers. Twenty-seven of them first had to get through 18-hole local qualifiers, a list that included 19-year-old Sam Burns.

For this year at Shinnecock Hills, the qualifiers stand at a mere 62 players.

That number figures to go up because the USGA has set aside seven spots for players who potentially can qualify through the top 60 in the world ranking after this week (Memorial winner J.T. Poston is a lock).

Even so, it's 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.

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't happen again.

But over the past few years, the USGA felt it should recognize LIV Golf by adding two spots — a leading player from last year (Joaquin Niemann) and this year (Lucas Herbert). Nothing would have kept either one from trying to qualify.

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's still a 36-hole qualifier in London that offered seven spots.

The U.S. Junior Amateur winner began getting an exemption in 2018, the NCAA champion in 2023. There's now a place for the top player on the Korn Ferry Tour last year.

Each addition gets the U.S. Open further away from its roots.

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 “meritocracy.” All of them could have qualified, just like four-time All-American Ben James and PGA Tour player Keith Mitchell.

“Today is such an important day for us,” John Bodenhamer, the USGA's chief championships officer, said Monday night as the qualifying at 10 sites across the continent were winding down. “Openness and qualifying and earning your way into our national championship is part of our DNA.”

It still is. But it's not as evident as it used to be. This should get the attention of the USGA, if it hasn't already.

There's no need to go down the path of the British Open from just over a decade go when it established the "Open Qualifying Series” at tournaments around the world.

It has been effective in identifying a good field through performance, but it's not the same as proving it over 36 holes. Players show up at tournaments to win — a place in the British Open often is a consolation prize (Poston managed to get both at Muirfield Village on Sunday).

Now the British Open offers 20 qualifying spots at four venues, plus something called a “Last Chance Qualifier” to be held over 18 holes on Monday of The Open at Royal Birkdale.

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's really no risk of missing out on a player whom the golfing public wouldn't know was missing.

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.

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's part of its DNA.

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