By David Shefter, USGA
Tim O’Neal has experienced enough heartbreak in golf to fill a scrap book.
Twice, he’s missed earning a PGA Tour card by a single stroke, including a double bogey on his final hole in the Q-School Finals in 2000. In last year’s U.S. Open sectional qualifying round here at Woodmont Country Club, a major traffic accident in the area cost the Savannah, Ga., native a chance to even compete. What should have been a 10-minute commute lasted 90 minutes, and O’Neal missed his scheduled starting time.
O’Neal, 42, returned this year to Woodmont, where 56 competitors were vying for three spots in next week’s U.S. Open at Chambers Bay. A 3-under-par 69 on the 7,166-yard North Course had O’Neal in a share of third following the morning round.
But O’Neal found himself flirting with heartache in the afternoon.
“I thought I gave it away on the second 18,” said O’Neal. “I was really surprised that 2 under (148) got into a playoff.”
Indeed, redemption finally arrived for the journeyman professional, a two-time winner on the PGA Tour Latinoamerica in 2013 who only has conditional Web.com Tour status in 2015. In a playoff against Joshua Persons, of Fargo, N.D., and minutes before a major thunderstorm pounded the area, O’Neal rolled in a 12-foot birdie putt to punch his ticket to the biggest event of his 18-year career. For once, lightning struck O’Neal in a positive way.
Co-medalists Billy Hurley III, of Annapolis, Md., and Denny McCarthy, of Rockville, Md., both of whom shot 6-under 138, earned the first two spots. Hurley (66-72), a 2005 USA Walker Cup competitor and 2004 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, will be making his second consecutive U.S. Open start, while McCarthy (70-68), a 2015 University of Virginia graduate, earned his first U.S. Open trip. McCarthy, 22, advanced to the semifinals of last year’s U.S. Amateur and helped the USA claim the World Amateur Team Championship last fall in Japan.
Those credentials won’t be found on O’Neal’s résumé, but he’s likely bounced around more back roads than Hurley and McCarthy combined. Since turning pro in 1997 after playing for coach Eddie Payton at Jackson State University in Jackson, Miss., O’Neal, the only African American to win the Georgia State Amateur (1997), has competed on the Asian Tour, eGolf Tour, the Morocco-based Atlas Pro Tour, PGA Tour Latinoamerica and the Web.com Tour. He even was sponsored for two years by actor Will Smith.
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