The 115th annual United States Open Championship will be contested at Chambers Bay in Washington in mid-June. The field for the National Open is usually set at 156 golfers and approximately 90 of the golfers who tee it up are already exempt. They include golfers with identifiable first names such as Rory, Jordan and Rickie alongside others who avoid qualifying by ranking within the world top 60 or finishing within the top 10 at the previous year’s Open.
The other 70 or so spots are earned through a fairly rigorous qualifying process. The USGA holds approximately 100 first-stage 18-hole qualifiers and then runs a dozen regional events that are 36-hole nail-biters. If you can play outstanding golf during the course of those 54 holes, then you could find yourself on the driving range at Chambers Bay with Sergio to your left and Phil to your right.
This past Wednesday marked the playing of one of those first-round qualifiers on the South Course at the Silverado Resort in Napa. Silverado South has hosted the PGA Senior Tour in the past and it is a rock-solid test of golf. A total of 86 golfers were entered in the field and five would advance to the second stage.
Tom Johnson, a professional mini-tour golfer from Arbuckle, shot an incredible 9-under-par 63 to secure the first qualifying spot. Doug Quinones, a four-time All-Conference golfer at Middletown High School from 2005 through 2008 and a standout collegiate golfer at Kansas University, came up big, shooting a 6-under-66 to get to the next stage. Doug, a mini-tour professional who has competed on the Dakotas Tour, had nine birdies. During the course of the playing of the eighth through the 11th holes, he made four birdies in a row. He birdied all four of the par-5s and birdied five of the par-4s. Quinones has always been a gifted linkster and this is a nice step in the progression of his career.
Four golfers were tied at 5-under-par 67 and they had a sudden-death playoff to determine the last three spots. Sebastian Crampton, a member of the UC Berkeley golf team, was the odd man out and is the first alternate. It’s golf’s equivalent of getting kissed by your cousin. Mini-tour pro Patrick Bauer of Fairfield and San Jose State golfer Cody Blick survived the sudden-death playoff and both are one step closer to playing in the National Open.
The other golfer to survive the playoff among those shooting 67 and advance was 17-year-old Miguel Delgado of Marin. I know of Delgado from the world of high school golf and the Branson High School senior is the real deal, not only as an outstanding golfer, but also as a class individual. It was just more than one year ago that I, as the tournament director of the North Coast Section Tournament of Champions at Peacock Gap, awarded Delgado his champion’s medal for shooting a 5-under-par 66 to capture the section’s individual title. Yet to be truly honest, winning the NCS title in 2014 and getting through the initial stage of 2015 U.S. Open qualifying are just a minor part of the already impressive golfing resume of Delgado.
I am of the opinion that Miguel Delgado has been the best junior golfer north of the Golden Gate Bridge for the past three years. A member of the Alister Mackenzie Meadow Club in Fairfax, Delgado has been on the national radar as a top junior golfer and most recently was ranked 56th by Golf Week. As a sophomore, Miguel won the Marin County Athletic League title, finished second in the TOC, advanced to the State Finals, and shot a 68 at Poppy Hills to finish second overall. During his junior year, he won the DeLaSalle Tournament, repeated as MCAL champ, and won the TOC at Peacock Gap, as I had earlier mentioned. That time around, he failed to advance from NorCals to the State Finals.
High school golf is a minor component in the successful junior career of Delgado. For the past few years he has been active in American Junior Golf Association tourneys as well as Northern California Golf Association and USGA events. Miguel has had top-15 finishes in AJGA tourneys such as the Bishops Gate Junior, the Puerto Rico Junior, and the Trans-Mississippi. He had a top-20 finish last summer at the prestigious Western Junior in Chicago and during one stretch he birdied five holes in a row at Flossmoor Country Club. As an aside, Flossmoor is an 1899 gem that hosted the 1920 PGA Championship and for many years the holder of its course record was amateur great Bobby Jones. Two years ago Miguel qualified into the field at the U.S. Amateur at The Country Club in Boston and last year he got to the quarterfinals of the always intense San Francisco City Amateur. Last month he won the Alameda Commuters against a strong field. The Commuters is one of the historical majors on the NCGA circuit.
Early on Miguel was noticed by college recruiters and there was serious interest from West Coast powers UCLA and Cal. Miguel was very public about wanting to commit early in the process and last summer he declared for Notre Dame. At first I scratched my head when I heard the news. Having grown up within range of South Bend, Indiana, I figured a Marin County kid would dislike the chill of Midwestern winters. However, Notre Dame is a member of the ACC for golf and it has a very competitive schedule. This past spring Notre Dame played in tournaments in San Diego, Los Angeles, Orlando and Naples, Florida. When you’re walking the links at Valencia Country Club in February, the snows of South Bend can be a very distant memory.
Golf professionals such as Doug Quinones are seeking a career-defining moment by hoping to successfully qualify for the U.S. Open on Pudget Sound next month. It was just three years ago that he was experiencing many of the same things that Delgado will soon experience in college golf. While it’s hard to tell whether Quinones will ever make it or whether Delgado has what it takes to make it, Delgado does have the best four years of his life ahead of him as he pursues a degree and continues to be a big fan of Notre Dame football. As for college golf, the Irish open their autumn portion of the schedule by playing in a tournament in Ireland. Sounds like a pretty neat baptism into the world of Notre Dame golf. And as an aside, maybe we’ll get to see Doug Quinones and Miguel Delgado in the field next month at the 115th annual United States Open.
