Mark Wiebe is 52 years old and has become a fixture on the Champions Tour. The Aurora resident last played an event on the PGA Tour in 2005 — at the International in Castle Rock — and last competed in the U.S. Open in 2001.
But that won’t stop Wiebe from trying to make the 2010 U.S. Open field the hard way. A two-time winner on both the PGA Tour and the Champions Tour, Wiebe is among the competitors entered in Monday’s U.S. Open Local Qualifying at Walking Stick Golf Course in Pueblo.
If Wiebe finishes among the top five out of the field of 75, he’ll still need to overcome similar odds in the Sectional Qualifying in order to advance to the U.S. Open, which will be played June 17-20 at Pebble Beach in California.
Wiebe has competed in nine U.S. Opens in the last 25 years, but none since 2001. His best showing in the event was 25th place in 1988.
But Wiebe has found some success on the Champions Tour since turning 50 in September 2007. He owns two wins and 16 top-10 performances, the most recent coming in the Legends of Golf team event where he placed eighth last month. Wiebe has finished in the top 20 on the Champions Tour money list each of his first two full seasons on the circuit.
Walking Stick will be one of three U.S. Open Local Qualifying sites in Colorado. Both the other tournaments will take place on May 17 — at The Heritage at Westmoor in Westminster and Collindale Golf Course in Fort Collins. Eighty-four players are in the field at Westmoor and 80 at Collindale, with five contestants from each course advancing to Sectionals.
Among the players entered at the three sites are several Colorado Open champions (three-time winner Bill Loeffler, along with Derek Tolan, Dustin White, Scott Petersen and Wiebe), as well as some former U.S. Open contestants (among them Wiebe; Tolan and Tom Glissmeyer, who qualified as 16-year-olds; and two-time qualifier Jason Allen).
Also competing are Tom Whitney, perhaps the best golfer in the history of the Air Force Academy; Wyndham Clark, one of the top 25-ranked junior players in the country; and Kane Webber, who’s won an event on the Asian Tour.
As usual, Colorado also will host a 36-hole U.S. Open Sectional Qualifying, June 7 at Columbine Country Club south of Denver. It will be one of 15 Sectionals held worldwide. Last year, 28 players competed at Columbine for two U.S. Open berths, which were claimed by PGA Tour player Steve Allan and mini-tour regular Charlie Beljan.
Overall this year, the USGA accepted 9,052 entries for the U.S. Open, including 63 from fully-exempt players. That total is the second-most ever, behind only last year. Most of those players will compete at one of the 111 Local Qualifying tournaments.
