The U.S. Open: Our National Championship

The U.S. Open is our national championship. More accurately, it is golf’s national championship, because anyone can attempt to qualify for it. Of course, the operative phrase is “attempt to qualify.”

The entry requirements state that a player must possess a handicap index of 1.4 or lower just to enter qualifying. Let’s put that into perspective.

There are roughly 30 million golfers in the United States. Approximately 1.25% of them carry a handicap low enough to enter U.S. Open qualifying. That narrows the field to roughly 300,000 players. Yet only about 10,000 actually attempt to qualify each year. In other words, many golfers wisely save the entry fee.

From those 10,000 hopefuls, approximately sixty players will eventually qualify for the U.S. Open itself. That is an astonishingly small percentage. The reasons are many, but the nature of tournament golf has a great deal to do with it.

It has often been said that the difference between casual golf and tournament golf is something like this:

Place a twelve-inch-wide plank on the ground and walk across it. Easy enough. That is golf with your buddies.

Now raise the very same plank ten feet in the air and walk across it. Your heart rate quickens, muscles tighten, and breathing becomes a little more shallow. That is tournament golf.

Now raise the plank twenty feet in the air. Suddenly, you feel genuine fear: sweaty palms, dizziness, tension throughout your body. That is major championship golf.

Even players who never compete beyond their club championship experience some version of those emotions when people are watching, a match becomes important, or there is a crowd gathered behind the eighteenth green.

The point is obvious: as pressure rises, performance suffers. It is not uncommon to see a five-handicap player shoot 85 in a state amateur championship. It was not simply “a bad day.” It was the cumulative pressure of the entire day.

This is also why only one golfer in history has won the U.S. Open after surviving both local and final qualifying: Ken Venturi in 1964.

The championship itself is conducted on a very select group of golf courses. Many of the U.S. Open rotation courses are historic venues, designed generations ago and, in many cases, updated carefully over time. Courses such as Oakmont, Winged Foot, Shinnecock Hills, and The Country Club were built with the explicit intention of identifying the best golfers in the world.

If you have ever been fortunate enough to play even a friendly round on one of them, you immediately understand why they are so revered—and feared.

The characteristics are familiar to every golfer: firm, elevated greens; lightning-fast putting surfaces; narrow fairways; ankle-high rough; and par fours stretching beyond 500 yards. These features are not accidental. They are designed specifically to expose weakness and reward complete control of the golf ball. It is why even par, or sometimes over par, can win the championship.

Every aspect of a player’s game is examined at the U.S. Open. You cannot possess a weakness and realistically contend.

We often talk about “horses for courses”—players suited to certain venues because they fade the ball, hit it high, flight it low, overpower a course, or excel on certain grasses. The U.S. Open is different. It does not favor one particular style. To succeed there, a player must do everything well.

In 1974, the U.S. Open was held at Winged Foot Golf Club in New York. Hale Irwin won the championship at seven-over par. At the time, USGA president Sandy Tatum was asked whether they were trying to embarrass the best players in the world.

His famous reply:

“No. We’re trying to identify the best players in the world.”

Of course, setups can occasionally cross the line. Any golf course can become unfair through poor hole locations or excessive conditions. But the best players in the world know their yardages to the exact number, control trajectories precisely, and possess extraordinary skill. The examination should therefore be exacting.

Add all of that to the pressure of competing in the U.S. Open itself, and it becomes easier to understand why only the very best players ever win it.

Jack Nicklaus once remarked that when the U.S. Open arrived, he did not feel he had 150 players to beat. He felt he had perhaps a dozen. He understood that the pressure and the brutal setup would eliminate most of the field before the tournament truly began.

So sit back, relax, and admire not only the championship itself, but also just how extraordinarily good the players are who compete in it.