U.S. Open (golf)

The United States Open Championship is an annual men's golf tournament staged by the United States Golf Association each June. It is one of the four major championships in men's golf and is on the official schedule of both the PGA TOUR and the PGA European Tour. The U.S. Open is staged at a variety of courses, and they are usually set up in such a way that low scoring is very difficult and there is a premium on accurate driving.

Qualification and prizes

The U.S. Open is open to any professional, or to any amateur with an up-to-date USGA Handicap Index not exceeding 1.4. The field is 156 players. Players may obtain a place by being fully exempt or by competing successfully in Qualifying.

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Around half of the field is made up of players who are fully exempt from qualifying. There are seventeen full exemption categories, including winners of the U.S. Open for the last ten years and the other three majors for the last five years, the top 30 from the previous year's PGA Tour money list, the top 15 from the previous year's European Tour money list, and the top 50 in the Official World Golf Rankings as of two weeks before the tournament. http://www.usopen.com/players/qualifying/full-exempt.html.

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Would be competitors who are not fully exempt must enter the Qualifying process, which has two stages. Firstly there is Local Qualifying, which is played over 18 holes at over 100 courses around the United States. Many leading players are exempt from this first stage http://www.usopen.com/players/qualifying/local-exempt.html, and they join the successful local qualifiers at the Sectional Qualifying stage, which is played over 36 holes at several sites in the U.S. and one each in Europe and Japan.

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The purse at the 2005 U.S. Open was $6,500,000, and the winner's share was $1,170,000. In line with the other majors, winning the U.S. Open gives a golfer several privileges which make his career much more secure, if he is not already one of the elite of the sport. U.S. Open champions are automatically invited to play in the other three majors (The Masters, British Open and the PGA Championship) for the next five years, and are exempt from qualifying for the U.S. Open itself for ten years. They also receive membership on the PGA TOUR for the following five seasons and invitations to THE PLAYERS Championship for five years.

Related Topics:
The Masters - British Open - PGA Championship - THE PLAYERS Championship

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The top fifteen finishers at the U.S. Open are fully exempt from qualifying for the following year's Open, and the top eight are automatically invited to the following season's Masters.

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