The 2022 United States Open Championship was the 122nd U.S. Open, the national open golf championship of the United States. It was a 72-hole stroke play tournament that was played between June 16–19 at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, a suburb west of Boston. It was the club's fourth U.S. Open, having been held there in 1913, 1963, and 1988.
Matt Fitzpatrick won his first major championship, finishing the tournament with a score of 274, six-under-par, a shot ahead of Scottie Scheffler and Will Zalatoris. The win was also Fitzpatrick's first on the PGA Tour. He had previously won the U.S. Amateur at The Country Club, in 2013, and matched Jack Nicklaus, who won both at Pebble Beach, as the only players to win the U.S. Amateur and U.S. Open on the same course.[1] Zalatoris, who lost in a playoff a month earlier at the PGA Championship, had a 14-foot birdie putt on the 18th green that would have forced a playoff but missed, and had his second consecutive runner-up finish in a major championship.[2]
The field for the U.S. Open is made up of players who gain entry through qualifying events and those who are exempt from qualifying. The exemption criteria include provision for recent major champions, winners of major amateur events, and leading players in the world rankings. Qualifying is in two stages, local and final, with some players being exempted through to final qualifying.[6]
As with all editions of the U.S. Open, eligibility to play is under the sole jurisdiction of the United States Golf Association to the exclusion of the PGA Tour, Professional Golfers' Association of America or any other organization. In early June 2022, several exempt players resigned or were suspended from the PGA Tour in order to compete in the LIV Golf Invitational Series, which held its inaugural event in England one week prior to the U.S. Open. The USGA subsequently confirmed that those players would remain eligible to play in the U.S. Open.[7]
Exemptions
This list details the exemption criteria for the 2022 U.S. Open and the players who qualified under them. Players are listed under the first criterion by which they qualified; any additional criteria under which a player was exempt are indicated in parentheses.[8][a]
Adam Hadwin led after the opening day, after a four-under-par round of 66, which included six birdies. Five players were a stroke behind after rounds of 67.[13] A total of 25 players scored under the par of 70 and a further 16 scored level par, so that 41 players were within four strokes of the leader.[14]
Joel Dahmen and Collin Morikawa led after the second round with scores of 135, 5-under-par. Morikawa's 66 was the best round of the day. Defending champion Jon Rahm was in a group of five players a stroke behind, while world number one Scottie Scheffler was in another group of five a further shot behind. Overnight leader Adam Hadwin had a 72 to be three strokes behind the leaders. 64 players made the cut, which came at 143, 3-over-par.[16]
Matt Fitzpatrick and Will Zalatoris led after the third round with scores of 206, 4 under par. Zalatoris's 67 was the best round of the day. Jon Rahm was in third place, a stroke behind, with Scottie Scheffler in a group of three a further shot behind. The overnight leaders, Joel Dahmen and Collin Morikawa, dropped down the leaderboard with Dahmen scoring 74 and Morikawa 77.[17]
Beginning the round tied for the lead with Will Zalatoris, Matt Fitzpatrick went two-under-par on his front-nine to take a one-shot advantage into the final nine holes at six-under-par. He then bogeyed the 10th hole and three-putted the 11th for another bogey, to fall back to four-under and two strokes behind the leaders. Fitzpatrick holed a 48-foot birdie putt at the 13th hole, to draw level with Zalatoris and retook sole possession of the lead with a 19-foot putt at the 15th.[18]
Zalatoris bogeyed two of his first three holes and was as many as four shots behind the leaders. He then made three birdies in four holes from the 6th hole to the 9th and took the lead with an 18-foot birdie putt at the 11th hole. He bogeyed the 12th and the 15th, after failing to get up-and-down from a greenside bunker, and fell back to four-under-par, before hitting his tee shot on the par-three 16th hole to six feet and making the putt to get within one of Fitzpatick.[19]
Zalatoris had a 12-foot putt for birdie on the 17th hole to draw level with Fitzpatrick, but missed the putt. With a one-shot lead playing the 18th, Fitzpatrick drove into a fairway bunker and played his second shot 18 feet past the hole. He two-putted for par and a round of 68, two-under-par, to finish at six-under for the tournament. Zalatoris, on a nearly identical line to Fitzpatrick, had a 14-foot putt for birdie that would have forced a playoff but it narrowly slid past the left side of the hole. He finished at five-under-par and his second consecutive runner-up finish in a major championship.[20]
World No. 1 and Masters champion Scottie Scheffler made four birdies in his first six holes to take the lead. He then bogeyed the 10th and three-putted the 11th, where his short par putt lipped out of the cup. Despite a birdie on the 17th, Scheffler finished at five-under-par, tied with Zalatoris and narrowly missing becoming only the seventh player to win both the Masters and U.S. Open in the same year.[21]
Hideki Matsuyama had a bogey-free round of 65, the lowest recorded during the week, to jump up to three-under-par and finished alone in fourth place. Defending champion Jon Rahm began the round just a shot off the lead but made five bogeys and only one birdie in a four-over-par 74 to fall outside the top-10, finishing tied for 12th.[22]
^(L) – denotes a player who progressed through local qualifying.
^Nick Hardy was added to the field after the only remaining players not already qualified who could still meet the category 12 qualification criteria missed the cut at the RBC Canadian Open.[9]
Matt Fitzpatrick
