ROCKVILLE, Mary. — US Open final qualifying is ultimately a test of pain tolerance.
It’s supposed to dull your senses, to give you body blow after body blow, to strike at your last nerve.
nickname “the longest day of golf“ it is not easy for those who have the duty to endure it. Thirty-six holes, often in heat, and LOT often with a field full of competitors looking to knock you down: These are the stakes that send thousands of US Open hopefuls into the final 43 spots of a 156-player field.
They are also the stakes that annually provide some of the best stories in golf – tales of underdogs and rising stars; of elders and old hats; of nobody and somebody fighting against a careless scorecard.
These are the stories that make me love golf. And on Monday at Woodmont Country Club in Rockville, Maryland, those are the stories I’ve been following closely, taking in my first day of US Open qualifying.
Below are some of the best stories I’ve seen, heard and found.
1. Ben Kohle’s Marathon
It wasn’t hard to imagine being Ben Kohls just after sundown Monday at Woodmont Country Club. You could practically see the exhaustion on his face.
In golf’s longest day, Kohles was the golfer who had golf the longest day. Not by the letter of the law — that honor would go to Andrew Putnam and Spencer Tibbitts, who played six playoff holes Monday night before darkness delayed the end of their playoff Tuesday morning. But of course from his frequent flyer miles.
Kohles won the BMW Charity Pro-Am on the Korn Ferry Tour Sunday night in Greenville, S.C. He got in the car almost immediately after his trophy photos and barely caught his flight from Charlotte to D.C. He arrived exhausted but undeterred in time for Monday’s 8:32 a.m. tee time, and then played some of America’s top 5 golf in his second year. career.
I found him by the scoreboard shortly after he had received his medal and invitation from the USGA, the excitement still fresh on his face.
“I feel like my head is still spinning,” he said. “It’s easily the craziest 24-hour stretch of my golf life.”
He left for the evening not long after sharing a big smile with his family on FaceTime. It was only 8:00 PM, but it was already time to sleep.
2. Logan Reilly’s All-Time Week
Six days ago, Logan Reilly ended his 2026 Auburn Tigers season with a birdie putt on the 18th hole to win the NCAA title. On Monday, he completed his US Open qualifying efforts with a last-par finish to secure a spot in his first major championship at Shinnecock Hills.
“Yeah, it’s definitely the best week of my life,” Reilly said Monday night.
And he may not be speaking in hyperbole. Reilly’s family has roots on Long Island, and he attended the 2018 US Open at Shinnecock as a fan. Many of his father’s friends were expected to be in attendance throughout the week for the 2026 national championship – and now they will have a hometown hero to support.
3. Jake Sollon’s changed plans
The first hint that Jake Sollon might be the man to beat in a two-to-one playoff for the final qualifying spot at Woodmont arrived before the playoffs even began. It was the 18th hole, Sollon’s 36th, when the 28-year-old pro bogeyed the hole with a 50-foot birdie putt that would have clinched the spot outright.
The odds of that shot landing were deceptively small, perhaps less than half a percent, but Sollon seemed angry when it didn’t fall.
“I loved that so much,” Sollon said with a smile afterward. “I was talking to (fellow pro) Cory Crawford before the round and he made a 50-footer in the last game a few years ago to qualify. We wanted to repeat that.”
Instead, Sollon returned to the 6th hole for a playoff with Lee. Lee went first on the par-3, hitting a safe approach that just flowed over the spine of the green and left it about 40 feet for birdie. Sollon came up second, firing a dart from 160 yards that landed right next to the flagpole and stayed there—a close ace on his first playoff swing.
When Lee’s birdie putt missed, Sollon was eight inches short of a birdie to win it.
“I’ve never been so scared of an eight-inch putt in my life, but it fell,” he said afterward.
“I had to fly to Bogota, Colombia for the start of the PGA Tour Americas,” he said. “”I’ve never been so happy to cancel a flight in my life.”
His playoff victory earned him his first major league start and a trip to Shinnecock to begin preparations for next week.
4. Landon O’Hara’s epic entrance
It wasn’t hard to spot the youngest player on the field at Maryland’s final qualifying stop. Sixteen-year-old Landon O’Hara looked like he’d stepped right out of high school and onto the field. And as it turned out, he had.
O’Hara is a riser sophomore student in high school. This was his first stab at the final qualification. He succeeded LOCAL qualifying after one of the wildest stories of this US Open season. As O’Hara’s father said, his son’s even-par round ended early in the day – thus times Landon decided to go home for a few hours. A normal high school day ensued, including a few hours of studying for his AP exams, before O’Hara got the call: His par score was one of the best of the day, and it was time to get back on course for a playoff.
Seven hours after completing his opening round, O’Hara returned to local qualifying for a one-hole playoff, which he won, earning him a spot in the final qualifier.
He didn’t make it into the US Open on Monday at Woodmont, but there’s little doubt the experience will serve him well in the coming years (and maybe even those exams!).
