Earlier this year the USGA announced changes to the qualifying processes for its main amateur and junior championships. The most significant of those changes were to the U.S. Amateur, which not only would exempt double the number of players off the World Amateur Golf Ranking but also winners from select state and allied golf association, regional and national amateur tournaments, all while moving from mostly one-day, 36-hole qualifiers to two stages of 18-hole qualifiers.
Months later, the USGA continues to solidify its qualification criteria for its national amateur championship.
“We’re about 98% there,” Brent Paladino, the USGA’s senior director of championship administration, told Golf Channel. “Still just working through a few events.”
Though the USGA wasn’t ready to reveal the finalized list of exempt tournaments for 2024, Golf Channel did obtain a preliminary list, which included obvious events such as the Cal State Amateur (state), Met Amateur (allied) and Western Amateur (national).
With a record number of entries (over 8,000) for this past U.S. Amateur qualifying, Paladino said the goal of the USGA was, “Trying to figure out more pathways to get players into our championships without having to run more qualifiers.”
Additionally, top finishers in these select amateur tournaments and the top 600 players in WAGR will be exempt into U.S. Amateur final qualifying, which will consist of 19 18-hole qualifiers across the country. Those fields will be comprised of about 60% exempt players and the rest, about 300 total, players who advance out of the 45 18-hole local qualifiers.
This past summer there were 96 36-hole qualifiers for the U.S. Amateur, a format that caused a myriad of issues from difficulties securing golf courses to inclement weather and high temperatures to a lack of flexibility with the number of spots allocated out of each site.
“It became logistically very challenging,” Paladino added.
With the changes, the USGA will be able to allocate spots much like it does U.S. Open final qualifying, based on strength of field.
Paladino also addressed concerns that two stages of qualifying would add more travel burdens on players. He acknowledges that, but he also notes that for the majority of players of U.S. Amateur caliber, they will likely be locally exempt. Plus, the alterations help those players by increasing the number spots available from each site and adding more ways to qualify via other events.
Aside from the previously announced qualifying changes, the USGA also recently proposed adjusting its wait list rules. Currently, wait lists go away and players on them are withdrawn following the close of entries. What the USGA, considering feedback from players and golf associations, is suggesting is the wait list closing 72 holes prior to the start of each qualifier with players only able to be on one wait list at a time – and the wait lists limited to 10 players at a time.
The problem with the current setup is that fields often get considerably smaller after post-entry-deadline withdrawals, and the USGA wants to increase player opportunity. For example, one U.S. Amateur qualifier this past summer had 24 spots from WDs that couldn’t be filled.
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