Beau Hossler
SAN FRANCISCO – He's only 17, and a Junior
in High School. But Beau Hossler carries
himself
around the
course with the confidence of a second
year
U.S. Open qualifier who will not be content
with
anything but making the cut and playing
his
best.
Last year, Hossler shot 76-77 at
Congressional
and expressed dissatisfaction with his
performance. After birdies on two of the
final
three holes in this year's sectional gave
him
another chance, the 3-time AJGA champion
is
using that experience at Olympic Club,
picking
the right clubs to find fairways off the tee
and
keep big numbers off the card.
Teeing off the 1st hole in the second
group at
7:11am, Hossler carded back-to-back
bogeys
on the 4th and 5th holes, but birdied the
short
seventh and finished the front nine at 1-
over.
On the back nine, he nailed a fairway
wood to
precision and birdied the 14th, and made
birdie. (Michael Allen, 36 years his senior,
recorded an eagle two there earlier, by
the
way.)
Hossler followed a bogey on the
excruciatingly
long 16th (670 yard par-5) with a birdie on
17
and closed with a par to shoot 1-under 35
and
put himself in excellent shape heading into
tomorrow.
Here is a look, courtesy Golfweek
Magazine, at
all eight
amateurs in the U.S. Open field:
Patrick Cantlay | Age: 20 | Hometown:
Los
Alamitos, Calif. | College: UCLA
The skinny: Cantlay
is the only amateur who didn’t have to
qualify
for this year’s Open. He was exempt as
the
winner of last year’s Mark H. McCormack
medal, given to the No. 1 player in the
R&A
World Amateur Rankings. Cantlay is trying
to
earn U.S. Open low-amateur honors for
the
second consecutive year, and top-amateur
honors in a third consecutive major. He
was T-
47 at this year’s Masters and is coming off
a
fourth-place finish at the NCAA
Championship
two weeks ago. He shot a tournament-
low 66
in the final round at Riviera. He was 11th
in
this season’s Golfweek/Sagarin College
Rankings after ranking first last year.
Beau Hossler | Age: 17 | Hometown:
Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif. | School:
Santa
Margarita HS
The skinny:
Hossler
is making a second consecutive Open,
giving
him more experience at this championship
than
some of the PGA Tour players in the field.
He
shot 76-77 to miss last year’s cut. He
finished
second June 6 at the California state
championship, just two days after he
qualified
for this year’s Open. He’s No. 3 in the
Golfweek/Sagarin Junior Rankings and has
made a verbal commitment to NCAA
champion
Texas for the 2013-14 campaign.
He's used to qualifying for USGA
championships
at an early age. He played in the 2009
U.S.
Amateur as an eighth grader.
Brooks Koepka | Age: 22 | Height: 6-1
|
Hometown: Wellington, Fla. | College:
Florida
State
The skinny:
The
long hitter from Florida State is making his
last
amateur appearance this week. He
advanced
out of a playoff at the Lecanto, Fla.
sectional
qualifier. He was 20th in this year’s
Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings after
winning three times.
Koepka was twice voted Atlantic Coast
Conference player of the year.
Alberto Sanchez | Age: 17 |
Hometown:
Nogales, Ariz. | College: Arizona
State
The skinny:
Sanchez, No. 188 in the
Golfweek/Sagarin
Junior Rankings, joins Hossler as players
in the
U.S. Open field who have yet to start
college.
He’s scheduled to begin his freshman
season at
Arizona State later this year, where he’ll
be
coached by Tim Mickelson. Sanchez earned
his
U.S. Open berth at nearby Lake Merced
Golf
Club and TPC Harding Park, which are
both
within 10 miles of Olympic Club. He’ll turn
18 on
Sunday. He spent the past two years at
La
Jolla Country Day School. “He’s one of
those
guys who in general doesn’t have a
strength or
a weakness,” Mickelson said. “He just
goes
about his business.”
Sanchez graduated from La Jolla Country
Day
School in California on June 1 and qualified
for
the U.S. Open three days later.
Nick Sherwood | Age: 21 | Hometown:
Albany, Ore. | College: Oregon State
The skinny:
Sherwood, an Oregon State senior, is
playing
his first USGA championship. He beat
Oregon
first-team All-American Daniel Miernicki in a
playoff to keep Miernicki from joining his
college coach, Casey Martin, in the field at
Olympic. Sherwood, No. 353 in the
Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings, has
two
career top-10s in three college seasons.
He
was medalist at last year’s Oregon
Amateur.
This was the third consecutive year he
advanced to U.S. Open sectional
qualifying.
“It’s a little bit of a step up, but hopefully
I’m
moving in the right direction,” Sherwood
said.
“Just a month ago I struggled on my home
course (he shot 80 in the final round of
the
Pac-12 Championship). It’s golf, man. If
you
just keep your head down and believe in
yourself, good things will happen.”
Sherwood will have his father, Bill, as a
caddie.
His father was a member of the 1987-88
Oregon State basketball team.
Jordan Spieth | Age: 18 | Hometown:
Dallas | College: Texas
The skinny:
Spieth
has been riding an emotional
rollercoaster. He
helped Texas win the NCAA title June 3,
holing
out for eagle 2 on Riviera's par-4 15th to
beat
Justin Thomas, the nation's No. 1 player,
in
Texas' final match against Alabama. He
had
U.S. Open sectional qualifying the next
day in
Houston, but lost a playoff for a U.S. Open
spot. He got into the field Monday evening
after Brandt Snedeker withdrew. Spieth
was
No. 2 in the Golfweek/Sagarin College
Rankings
in his recently-completed freshman season
at
Texas. He has plenty of experience in Tour
events, having contended twice in his
hometown Byron Nelson Championship.
He
missed the cut at this year's Northern
Trust
Open and was 41st in this year's Valero
Texas
Open.
Cameron Wilson | Age: 19 |
Hometown:
Rowayton, Conn. | College: Stanford
The skinny:
Wilson
is paired in the first two rounds with
another
Stanford product, Casey Martin. Wilson’s
focus
isn’t all on golf this week, though. The
Stanford junior tweeted Sunday, “Writing
a
paper on Islam and 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Don't think my competitors are doing
same.”
He rebounded quickly from the NCAA
Championship two weeks ago, where he
finished 123rd, to win his sectional
qualifier at
Canoe Brook in New Jersey.
Andy Zhang | Age: 14 | Hometown:
Kissimmee, Fla. (originally from Beijing)
The skinny: Andy Zhang
earned
a spot in the U.S. Open after Paul Casey
withdrew with an injury on Monday
afternoon
in San Francisco. Zhang was the second
alternate - behind Jordan Spieth - after
losing
in a playoff to Brooks Koepka at a
sectional
qualifier in Lecanto, Fla. Zhang plays out
of
Reunion Resort in Kissimmee, Fla., where
he is
coached by Andrew Park. Originally from
Beijing, Zhang has lived in the United
States
since he was 10 and has won a pair of
junior
titles over the past four years. Read Nick
Masuda's interview with Zhang after
receiving
the news on Monday.
ABOUT THE
U.S. Open Golf Championship
The U.S. Open is the biggest of the 15 national
championships conducted by the USGA.
Open
to amateurs and professionals. Amateurs gain
entry via USGA win or runner-up finishes while having the opportunity
to qualify alongside non-exempt professionals in an 18-hole "Local' qualifying followed
by 36-hole "Final" qualifying which is affectionately known as golf's longest day.
Highly-ranked amateurs will be exempted past the 18-hole Local Qualifying. See the
USGA website for details. And if you are exempt on any level be sure to apply by the deadline anyway.
The USGA intends to make the U.S. Open
the
most rigorous, yet fair, examination of golf
skills, testing all forms of shot-making. The
USGA prepares the course after careful
consideration of 14 different factors.
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