USGA Ends 10 Shot Rule

The top 60 and ties still make the cut at the U.S. Open, but the USGA no longer includes everyone within 10 shots of the 36-hole lead.

USGA executive director Mike Davis said the decision was mainly to protect against too many players on the weekend, and that no one ever has made the cut under the 10-shot rule and gone on to win the U.S. Open.

Perhaps the most glaring problem came at Oakland Hills in 1996, when 108 players made the cut. 

It was nearly to the point that the U.S. Open had to go to threesomes on both tees. Instead, the first group started at 6:45 a.m. Tiger Woods, in his last U.S. Open as an amateur, teed off at 7:17 a.m., the earliest ever for him on Sunday at the U.S. Open.

The flip side was 1993, when Ernie Els made the cut because of the 10-shot rule. He closed with 68-67 on the weekend to tie for seventh, which made him exempt from qualifying the following year. 

Els won that next year at Oakmont for the first of his three majors.