From Thursday, June 12 through Sunday, June 15, golf enthusiasts around the world will be following the play at the 125th U.S. Open Championship, which is being held this year at the Oakmont Country Club near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Of the 156 players in the field, many of them have strong ties to Palm Beach County. That list includes two-time PGA Championship winner Justin Thomas, this year’s Masters champion Rory McIlroy, three-time major championship winner Jordan Spieth, and two-time U.S. Open/three-time PGA Championship winner Brooks Koepka, who grew up in Wellington.
While those names are familiar to golfers around the world, one of the 156 players in the field whose name may not be as recognizable is also a Wellington resident — 50-year-old Justin Hicks, who works as a PGA teaching professional at the Stonebridge Country Club in Boca Raton.
Hicks earned his way into the field at Oakmont by finishing in a three-way tie for first at a U.S. Open Final Qualifier, which was held at the Emerald Dunes Golf Club in West Palm Beach on June 2-3. That 36-hole qualifier was meant to have been completed on Monday, June 2, but afternoon rain and thunderstorms delayed completion of the event until the following day.
Hicks’ two-round score of 133 (65-68; 11-under-par) was low enough to finish in a three-way tie for first with Philip Barbaree Jr. of Shreveport, Louisiana, and Frankie Harris, an amateur from Boca Raton.
The fourth qualifier from the Emerald Dunes event was Austen Truslow from New Smyrna Beach. Truslow finished at 10-under-par, but he had to win a sudden-death playoff for his spot against Orlando resident and University of Florida golfer Luke Poulter, the son of European Ryder Cup star Ian Poulter.
In all, 81 players competed for one of those four spots at Emerald Dunes. One of them was Tyler Stachkunas, who is a member at the Wellington National Golf Club. He shot 73-70 to finish at 143 (one-under-par). Another player in the field at Emerald Dunes was Northern Ireland’s Graeme McDowell, who won the 2010 U.S. Open. McDowell shot 139 (70-69; five-under-par), which was five shots adrift of Truslow and Poulter.
This will be Hicks’ second major championship appearance of the year. He also played in this year’s PGA Championship at the Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, in late May. There, Hicks shot 76-79 (13-over-par) and missed the cut. Then again, 17 former major championship winners also missed the cut at Quail Hollow.
Hicks traveled to Oakmont on the evening of Saturday, June 7 for practice rounds from June 8 to June 11. He’s being joined at Oakmont by his wife Kathryn, their 14-year-old son Owen, and Danny Randolph, one of his friends from Boca Raton, who worked as Hicks’ caddy during the U.S. Open qualifier at Emerald Dunes. Randolph’s role at Oakmont will be more than just being a bag carrier.
“There’s a lot of discussions and planning that goes into things such as equipment and shot selection,” Hicks said. “He’s a former college [golf] coach.”
Owen Hicks, who will be watching his dad from the gallery, is a scratch golfer and a student at the King’s Academy, where he plays on the boys varsity golf team.
According to Hicks, the chances of rain in the greater Pittsburgh area were quite high during the days leading up to the first round of the golf tournament, so he was unsure how much pre-tournament practice and preparation he would get on the course at Oakmont.
His opening-round tee time on Thursday, June 12 was set for 7:07 a.m., and his second-round tee time on Friday, June 13 is scheduled for 12:52 p.m. His playing partners during the first two rounds are Evan Beck, an amateur from Virginia Beach, Virginia, and Maxwell Moldovan, a professional from Uniontown, Ohio. Of the 156 players in the field, the top 60 players and all ties after the first two rounds will make the cut and play the third and fourth rounds over the weekend.
This is Hicks’ seventh time playing in the U.S. Open, having played in the event in 2004, 2008, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2016. His best finish was a 60th-place tie in 2011, though he was a joint first-round leader at the 2008 U.S. Open, when he shot an opening round of 68, but finished in a tie for 74th when the tournament was held at the Torrey Pines Golf Course in La Jolla, California. This will be Hicks’ second U.S. Open at Oakmont, after the 2016 U.S. Open, which was also contested at Oakmont.
“I made the cut in 2016 and played with Bubba Watson and Jon Rahm, then an amateur, in the third round,” Hicks recalled. “Oakmont is a tough golf course with large undulations in the greens, which were quite quick.”
Palm Beach County is one of the few counties in the United States to host both a local qualifier and a final qualifier for this year’s U.S. Open. In addition to the final qualifier at Emerald Dunes, the Wellington National Golf Club hosted an 18-hole local qualifier on Monday, May 5.
