Total of 14 players at 3 Colorado Local Qualifying sites will advance to U.S. Open Sectionals; past Open contestants sprinkled in fields; Coloradan Condon has already punched ticket to Sectionals
By Gary Baines – 05/03/2019
Several players who have qualified in the past for the U.S. Open will be looking to book return trips as the two-step qualifying process begins in Colorado next week.
As usual, three sites in the Centennial State will host 18-hole Local Qualifying tournaments: Collindale Golf Course in Fort Collins on Tuesday (May 7), CommonGround Golf Course in Aurora on Thursday (May 9) and Walnut Creek Golf Preserve in Westminster on May 13.
The top five finishers each from CommonGround and Walnut Creek will advance to Sectional Qualifying, while the top four will move on from Collindale, which has a slightly smaller field.
Nine U.S. sites will host Sectionals, in addition to three other sites around the world. The Sectional Qualifying in America will take place primarily on June 3, with one in Dallas on May 20. The U.S. Open itself is set for Pebble Beach Golf Links on the Monterey Peninsula in California June 13-16.
The USGA, which conducts the U.S. Open, accepted 9,125 entries for this year’s U.S. Open.
At the Local Qualifying sites in Colorado, entrants include past U.S. Open contestants Derek Tolan of Denver (2002), Ben Portie of Westminster (2002), Nick Mason of Parker (2014) and Jason Preeo of Highlands Ranch (2010 at Pebble Beach, where he made the cut).
Tolan, Mason and Portie are among the 76 in the field at Collindale, while Preeo is one of the 84 at Walnut Creek. There’s also 84 at CommonGround.
In addition to the aforementioned, several prominent local college players are scheduled to tee it up at Collindale, including past CGA Players of the Year Jake Staiano (2017) and AJ Ott (2018), Josh Seiple, Davis Bryant and Trevor Olkowski. Among the pros at that site are Michael Schoolcraft and Riley Arp.
At CommonGround, the top local college contingent includes Cal McCoy, Coby Welch, Ross Macdonald and Esteban Missura. Among the other prominent players in the field are Kane Webber, Chris Korte, Colin Prater and Brian Dorfman.
And at Walnut Creek, there’s Zahkai Brown, Steven Kupcho, Jon Lindstrom, Scott Petersen and George Markham.
For tee times, click on the following: COLLINDALE, COMMONGROUND, WALNUT CREEK.
At least one Coloradan has already advanced to Sectionals. That would be 57-year-old amateur Greg Condon, who shot a 71 in Albuquerque, N.M. on Tuesday.