Michael Brennan's improbable par secures U.S. Open spot
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Michael Brennan watched in disbelief Monday as his approach at the first playoff hole in U.S. Open final qualifying at Woodmont Country Club in Rockville came to a stop. It settled into gnarly rough, inches above a greenside bunker, on a severe slope that offered almost no shot at the flag, some 15 yards away.
The Leesburg native looked at his caddie while walking toward his ball and said, “That was just poor.”
What happened next earned a place among the more improbable results in the decorated career of the Wake Forest junior, who in April won the ACC individual title.
Brennan pulled a 50-degree wedge from his bag, anchored his right foot into the sand, planted his left in the rough and contorted his lower body into something resembling a split. His swing caught the ball cleanly, lofting it high toward the No. 8 pin. It landed soft, settling about four feet from the hole.
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Brennan, a former All-Met at Tuscarora High, sank the par putt, pumped his fist and celebrated securing a berth in next week’s U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club. Brennan joined Sebastián Muñoz, the only professional in the four-man playoff, to claim the final two qualifying spots out of Woodmont.
Stanford’s Karl Vilips and Liberty’s Isaac Simmons had already locked up berths by shooting 4-under-par 138 over two rounds, one better than Brennan; Muñoz; Ben Kohles, a two-time ACC player of the year at Virginia; and George Duangmanee, a Cavaliers junior.
“[With] my right foot being in the bunker, I was hitting on such a steep up slope that it was actually doable to get the ball up super easily,” Brennan said. “The fact that it actually came out well and that it was the right distance and the right direction was a minor miracle.”
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Moments before Brennan’s putt, Muñoz curled in a 15-footer for birdie to punch his ticket to the U.S. Open, where last year at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass., the Colombian-born LIV Golf player finished tied for 14th, his best finish at a major championship.
Even though he grew up in Bogotá and played college golf at North Texas, Muñoz is plenty familiar with the layout at Woodmont. He carded the lowest score among all qualifiers there with a 136 in 2018 and has attempted to qualify at Woodmont several other times.
But it’s unclear whether Muñoz will be able to play next week: His wife is expecting their first child Monday.
“It might hold up; it might come out later,” Muñoz said. “So, no expectations [for the U.S. Open]. I’m glad I made it and now just be lucky so I can play.”
The exhilaration from Brennan and Muñoz was in stark contrast to the emotion of Kohles, who held a three-stoke lead at 7 under with three holes to play. He wound up shooting 4 over the rest of the way, including a double bogey at No. 17.
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Needing to par the 18th, Kohles drove into the bunker, punched out onto the fairway and landed his approach some 15 feet above the hole. His par putt missed to the right, dropping him into the playoff, where he made a bogey on No. 8.
The circumstances surrounding Kohles’s collapse were painfully similar to those of former Cavaliers teammate Denny McCarthy, whose old Virginia team bag Kohles used during qualifying. Kohles had used the same bag in 2017 at Woodmont when he qualified for the U.S. Open at Erin Hills in Wisconsin.
On Sunday, McCarthy needed a par on the 72nd hole to win at the Memorial in Dublin, Ohio, and claim his first PGA Tour title. The native of Montgomery County who attended Georgetown Prep instead bogeyed the 18th and lost in a playoff to Viktor Hovland.
Among the notables who failed to qualify out of Woodmont were Australian Marc Leishman. The 2009 PGA Tour rookie of the year fired a 68 in the morning but fell back to a 74 in the afternoon, when the sun firmed up the fairways and greens.
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Source: The Washington Post
