GASTONIA, NORTH CAROLINA | It was late Monday afternoon as the Gaston Country Club chapter of golf’s longest day – final qualifying for the U.S. Open – was edging toward its conclusion, and Jackson Van Paris could determine whether he would earn a spot at Shinnecock Hills next week with a birdie on his 36th hole.
In his first full season on the Korn Ferry Tour, the 22-year-old has been struggling, missing four consecutive cuts, so he chose not to monitor the scores and where he stood through the long, muggy grind.
He was one of 63 players chasing five spots and, because he could only control what he was doing, Van Paris didn’t want the distraction of watching a leaderboard on his phone.
Until his father, Todd, suggested otherwise.
“I had no idea all day until the last three holes. The thing we talked about is we don’t want to know. Just go play golf,” Van Paris said.
“Then my dad ended up telling me on 16, ‘Hey, I think you want to know.’ So he told me. He said there might be a playoff at 10 [under par] but 11 would likely get in. So I birdied two of the last three and fortunately I did it.”
Van Paris’s birdie on the 18th hole, punctuated by his father’s cheer, got him to 11 under and locked him into his first U.S. Open, joining amateur Jackson Ormond, Carl Yuan, Brandon Wu and Cole Hammer as the five to advance, along with 38 others from various sites around the country.
Meanwhile, Harry Higgs and Cristobal Del Solar went from the prospect of being in a three-for-one playoff with Van Paris to being left as alternates should someone from among the Gastonia qualifiers withdraw.
Such is the black-and-white reality of trying to earn a spot in the championship that already bills itself as the toughest test in golf. Just getting there may be the hardest part.
“It’s a long day. But I qualified two years ago. It’s still a tournament I love and I want to qualify every year. I just didn’t have it today.” – Webb Simpson
After 27 holes Monday and far enough off the pace to know he wouldn’t qualify, seven-time PGA Tour winner Webb Simpson and his caddie, Paul Tesori, were loading clubs into the back of Simpson’s car.
Simpson excused himself from the competition to drive Tesori to the airport for an early flight home. The 2012 U.S. Open champion (his exemption was good for 10 years) was one of 14 players who elected not to go the distance on Monday.
“It’s a long day,” Simpson said before driving away. “But I qualified two years ago. It’s still a tournament I love and I want to qualify every year. I just didn’t have it today.”
Niall Shiels Donegan, a semifinalist in the U.S. Amateur last summer and a Walker Cup player for Great Britain and Ireland, shot even-par 70 in the morning round at Gaston, leaving him eight shots behind leader Hammer and with little hope of advancing.
But Donegan shot 8-under 62 in the afternoon round and briefly thought a par save from a greenside bunker on his final hole might be enough to get him to Shinnecock. Some quick math after his round had Donegan on the road back to Chapel Hill, where he plays for the University of North Carolina, long before the final scores came in.
“It’s a grind. I knew the morning was going to make the afternoon tough but I did a lot of positive self-talk and tried to give myself a chance this afternoon,” said Donegan, who played the final five holes solo, both of his playing partners having withdrawn.
“It’s so much fun.”
Monday bled into Tuesday on the West Coast because darkness forced a six-hole, two-for-one playoff to be continued and when that ended, 43 players had earned U.S. Open tee times through the final group of Monday qualifying events.
It left 150 of the 156 spots on the Shinnecock tee sheet filled. The remaining spots will go to any player who moves into the top 60 in the world ranking Sunday evening, a non-qualified player who wins the RBC Canadian Open to give him multiple PGA Tour victories over the past 12 months, and alternates from the Monday qualifiers.
Higgs, the first alternate from Gastonia, shot 64-66 and will likely be left out. After signing his scorecard and waiting for Van Paris and others to decide his fate, Higgs tried to explain the experience.
“I don’t think there’s anything you can do to prepare yourself and I don’t think there’s any way to explain it. You just put your head down and keep walking. It’s long but I also feel like it just flies by. It’s just brutal,” Higgs said.
“The adrenaline will wear off and you’re just tired for a week. Like any other round, you can nitpick here and there but this is the first time I’ve played good golf … I almost walked off the golf course through six holes. I don’t really know what changed, whether it was more a freewheel, but finally I started to see some success and execute some good shots which was nice.”
But not quite nice enough.