The USGA was creative once again with its first and second round groupings for the 120th U.S. Open, which starts on Thursday.
For example, there’s an all-Canada group consisting of Adam Hadwin, Mackenzie Hughes and Corey Conners.
There’s a big-hitters group made up of FedEx Cup champ Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau and Tony Finau. Bombs away.
Andy Ogletree, who won the 2019 U.S. Amateur, gets to play with defending U.S. Open champ Gary Woodland and 2019 Open Championship winner Shane Lowry. That’s pretty cool.
There’s an all-Oklahoma State grouping made up of Rickie Fowler, Matthew Wolff and Viktor Hovland. #CowboyGolf, indeed.
In the group just ahead of them is an all-Arizona State threesome. Phil Mickelson, making his 28th U.S. Open appearance, will tee it up with fellow former Sun Devils Jon Rahm and Paul Casey.
Former ASU golfers Matt Jones and Chez Reavie are also in the field.
But it’s not just past ASU golfers represented.
Sun Devil-to-be Preston Summerhays is in the 144-golfer field. He got in by virtue of his 2019 U.S. Junior Amateur title. Summerhays committed to ASU 11 months ago to and will be a part of the Class of 2021.
Current Sun Devil Chun An Yu, who goes by Kevin, is playing in his third U.S. Open. The fifth-year senior got in because of his World Amateur Golf Ranking. He was third as of the Aug. 19 cutoff.
Who’s your caddie?
Yu’s caddie this week will be his coach at ASU, Matt Thurmond, who will carry a Pat Tillman-inspired camoflage golf bag featuring the PT42 patch (Tillman wore No. 42 for the Sun Devils from 1994-97) and the ASU pitchfork logo.
Thurmond spoke with Sports360AZ.com in Phoenix earlier this week about Yu’s preparations for Winged Foot.
“You just have to recalibrate your expectations,” Thurmond said. “Kevin goes out on any course we play and shoots mid-60s, pretty much every day. Just knowing that you might go and shoot 74, 75 and have it be a great round and being OK with that, I think, is so important.”
Yu is grouped with Sebastian Muñoz and Justin Harding.
If there’s one last ASU-U.S. Open connection this week, it’s Mickelson’s caddie, Tim, his brother and the coach who preceded Thurmond in Tempe.
