PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — He made a triple bogey in his first round and a double bogey in his second. He bogeyed the first playoff hole. And still, somehow, Miles Russell was going to the U.S. Open.
Russell, 17, became one of the more extraordinary qualifiers in a day already packed with them — surviving a three-man playoff at BallenIsles Country Club on Monday to earn a spot in the 126th U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, which begins June 18. The Florida teenager, ranked tenth in the world amateur standings and first among juniors globally, shot rounds of 71 and 67 to finish at seven under, tied with Ryder Cowan for the third and fourth available spots. Tyler Collet, also on seven under, was left out after missing on the first extra hole.
What made Monday stranger and more compelling than Russell’s scorecard alone was who was walking beside him on the property. Charlie Woods — son of three-time U.S. Open champion Tiger Woods, fellow 17-year-old and future Florida State Seminole — carried Russell’s bag through all 36 holes and extra play. The younger Woods had failed to advance from his own local qualifier weeks earlier, which left his schedule open. He and Russell are close friends, share the same commercial agent, and are both verbally committed to Florida State for 2027.
“It kept it so light,” Russell told reporters after the round, according to the Associated Press. “It’s the first time I’ve had a buddy on the bag. I really like it — not talking much golf, just having a good time.” Whether Charlie will remain on the bag at Shinnecock Hills next week, Russell said, is “to be determined.”
The performance at BallenIsles was, by any objective reading, rough in parts. Russell made a triple bogey in round one and dumped another double bogey into round two. He threw away shots that a smoother qualifier would not have and still made it through a field that included PGA Tour veteran Ben Silverman and a collection of highly ranked juniors. That he was among the four finalists despite those lapses is the indicator Golf Digest noted — a player more talented than the scorecard suggests, even on a day when the scorecard was fighting him.
Russell is a two-time AJGA Rolex Junior Player of the Year, having won the first of those honors at 15 — breaking the record for youngest recipient previously held by Tiger Woods himself, according to Golf Channel. The father’s record, the son on the bag: it was a detail Monday served up without announcement.
The Florida qualifier was one of 10 sites running simultaneously on Monday — what the USGA markets as Golf’s Longest Day, the 36-hole sprint that fills the final 43 spots in the U.S. Open field. Combined with three earlier qualifying rounds held in May in Dallas, England and Japan, the USGA needed to move a total of 62 players into the 156-man field through qualifying. The 126th U.S. Open will return Shinnecock Hills to the national championship for the sixth time, its first appearance at the Southampton, New York venue since 2018.
The BallenIsles qualifier had an unusual quality to its final leaderboard: three of the four players who advanced were amateurs. Giuseppe Puebla, ranked second nationally among juniors, shared medalist honors with Silverman at seven under. Puebla is committed to Florida, meaning two future conference rivals — Russell at Florida State, Puebla at Florida — will both tee it up at Shinnecock next week.
At Lakes Golf and Country Club in Westerville, Ohio, a separate piece of history was made without a famous name attached to it. Árni Sveinsson, an LSU rising junior from Garðabær, Iceland, emerged from a four-man playoff to become the first Icelander ever to qualify for the U.S. Open. Sveinsson, ranked 17th in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, shot 67-68 for nine under and then survived the extra holes when Sam Udovich — who had bogeyed his final two holes in regulation — drove into the water and made double-bogey, as Golf Channel reported. J.B. Holmes and Vaughn Harber, another amateur, took the other two spots from that qualifier.
The Sveinsson story carried its own internal drama. Holmes, 44, from Campbellsville, Kentucky, has been limited to 23 Tour events over the past four seasons by back problems and had not competed at all in 2026 before Monday. He last appeared in a major at the 2019 Open Championship at Royal Portrush, where he shot a final-round 87 after sharing the 36-hole lead. On Monday at Westerville he posted a 65 in the afternoon to force himself into a playoff and get up-and-down for par on the first extra hole — a sequence that bore no resemblance to the seven years between it and his last major.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd-TE5aRFI4
In the other Ohio qualifier, at Springfield Country Club, Billy Horschel was among five to advance, shooting 68-65 for eleven under. Horschel had described the weeks heading into Monday as difficult, and the qualification offered some relief ahead of a tournament he has contended at before. Tony Finau, who has played in every U.S. Open since 2017, missed by two shots at Springfield and will not be at Shinnecock Hills, as ESPN confirmed. Brandt Snedeker ended up as the first alternate.
At Gaston Country Club in Gastonia, North Carolina, 18-year-old Jackson Ormond was the story — birdying five of his final seven holes, including a closing 63, to go from outside the number to medalist. Carl Yuan matched Ormond’s 128 total. Jackson Van Paris, Brandon Wu and Cole Hammer took the remaining three spots. Ormond is committed to Florida for next fall.
At Lambton Golf and Country Club in Ontario, Canada, six spots went including to Emiliano Grillo and Alejandro Tosti, who shot a second-round 63 to reach eight under. Max McGreevy claimed the sixth and final Canadian spot in a playoff — a contested one, with Matt Wallace and Adam Svensson both missing out after an eight-man, three-spot playoff at the end.
The 126th U.S. Open also arrives amid an unsettled relationship between the USGA and the PGA Tour over the golf ball rollback, a debate that has sharpened in the weeks leading up to Shinnecock. And the Shinnecock field includes several qualifiers who came through LIV Golf’s qualifying path, a point of ongoing tension around access to the major championship.
Across all 10 sites Monday plus the three earlier qualifiers in Dallas, Walton Heath and Japan, the USGA punched 62 players through to Shinnecock. One qualifier remained incomplete at nightfall — Emerald Valley Golf Club in Creswell, Oregon, where Andrew Putnam and Spencer Tibbits entered sudden death on two spots after play was suspended by darkness. They were to return Tuesday morning to decide the final berth in the 156-man field.
The 126th U.S. Open begins Thursday, June 18, on the William Flynn design in Southampton. What happened Monday in Palm Beach Gardens — a teenager with his best friend on the bag, surviving his own mistakes to reach the national championship — will be one of the quieter stories when the week starts. Whether it stays that way depends entirely on what happens once the actual golf begins.
