One day after Scottie Scheffler captured his third major at the PGA Championship, the 156-man field for the U.S. Open began to take shape Monday with 27 players added through the world ranking and qualifiers being held on three continents.
It won’t include Sergio Garcia for the first time since 1999.
Garcia bogeyed his final hole in 36-hole qualifying in Dallas, costing him a spot in a 7-for-1 playoff for the seventh spot. Rasmus Neergaard-Peterson led the seven qualifiers that included Carlos Ortiz, who birdied his last hole to get in.
Thirty-six others were exempt from qualifying. That includes Davis Riley and Joe Highsmith, both doing well enough in the final round of the PGA Championship to move into the top 60 in the world ranking.
The U.S. Open is June 12-15 at Oakmont Country Club in Oakmont, Pennsylvania, where Dustin Johnson won his first major. Johnson played a practice round that week with Scheffler, who was 19 and making his U.S. Open debut. Scheffler opened with 69, then shot 78 and missed the cut.
LIV Golf added five more of its players to the field when Jinichiro Kozuma was among three players who made it through the Japan qualifier and Ortiz qualified at Bent Tree in Dallas. Joaquin Niemann was added as the leading player on LIV points, while the top 60 in the world added Tyrrell Hatton and Patrick Reed.
Most of the final qualifying is scheduled for June 2 across the U.S. and in Canada.
The field of exempt players — not including the qualifying sites — was 85 players, a little higher than normal for a U.S. Open that strives to have about half the field (78 players) qualify.
Riley, Highsmith, Jhonattan Vegas and Si Woo Kim each moved into the top 60 in the world in the final week. Riley was in contention when he took a triple bogey on the seventh hole. He was 4 over for his round at that point, but played bogey-free the rest of the way to tie for second.
That was enough to move him from No. 100 into the top 60 at 53rd in the world. Ditto for Highsmith, who played bogey-free with three birdies over the final 12 holes to move up nine spots to No. 60.
That bumped Laurie Canter, though he became exempt for being the highest-ranked player on the European tour points list not already eligible.
The only other exempt spot available is the NCAA men’s individual champion, which will be decided May 26 at La Costa Resort in California.
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AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
