The road to the Pacific Northwest's first ever U.S. Open is set to begin with two local qualifiers being held May 11 and 12.
At The Home Course in DuPont, Wash., 120 players will compete on Monday, May 11, while Wine Valley Golf Club in Walla Walla, Wash., will host 78 players on Tuesday, May 12. Both fields are full.
The first tee times begin at 7:00 am at both qualifiers. For a complete listing of groupings and tee times, click here.
Both qualifiers are being conducted by the Washington State Golf Association (WSGA), which is the statewide representative of the United States Golf Association (USGA).
The local qualifiers are 18 holes of stroke play with the top seven contestants from The Home Course and the top four contestants from Wine Valley Golf Club advancing to sectional qualifying. The WSGA will conduct a sectional qualifier on June 8 at Tumble Creek Club in Cle Elum, Wash.
The Home Course is a Michael Asmundson design and will be played as a par 72 at 7,352 yards. Wine Valley Golf Club, designed by Dan Hixson, will play as a par 71 at 7,464 yards.
This year's U.S. Open will visit the Pacific Northwest for the first time in its 115-year history as Chambers Bay in University Place, Wash. hosts the championship on June 18-21. There were 9,882 entries accepted by the USGA, which conducts the championship, the most entries ever accepted for a U.S. Open held on the West Coast, and second only to last year's record number of 10,127 entries. To be eligible, golfers must either be a professional, or be an amateur with a handicap index of 1.4 or less.
Some participants at The Home Course qualifier looking to make it into the national championship's 156-player field include Cheng-Tsun Pan, a qualifier for the 2013 U.S. Open, and former No.-1 ranked amateur in the world who recently graduated from the University of Washington; James Lepp, a British Columbia native, another former University of Washington golfer and former No. 1-ranked amateur in the world who was featured in two seasons of Golf Channel's "Big Break" series; Tim Feenstra, a PGA golf professional at Seattle's Broadmoor Golf Club who is a two-time Washington Open champion; Cameron Peck of Olympia, Wash., who was the 2008 U.S. Junior Amateur champion, and also winner of both the Pacific Northwest Amateur Championship and Washington State Amateur Championship in 2013, and has since turned professional; Dan Harrington, the PGA Head Professional at The Home Course; teenager Matt Marrese, who won the Washington State high school championship with a two-day score of 11-under at Chambers Bay; and junior standout Sam Warkentin, winner of last year's Pacific Northwest Junior Boys' Amateur Championship and Washington State Junior Boys' Championship.
Local qualifying for the 2015 U.S. Open will take place at 111 sites across the country between May 4 and May 21. Those who make it through local qualifying will move on to sectional qualifying. There are 12 sectional sites - 10 in the United States, one in England and one in Japan. International sectional qualifiers will be contested May 25, while all sectional qualifiers in the U.S. will be played on June 8. Sectional qualifying will be played over 36 holes.
Follow live scoring from both local qualifiers at www.thewsga.org, and use hashtags #RoadtoChambersBay and #USOpen to participate with social media. Members of the media attending the qualifier at The Home Course on May 11 are asked to check in at the course's Bodenhamer Pavilion when arriving at course.
