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Sewickley’s Li Prepares For U.S. Open Final Qualifying
Nerves filled Jason Li, as they always do, but this time instead of a round with friends for $5, a spot for the Sewickley product, to get one step closer to his local U.S. Open, as he resides 25 miles away from Oakmont Country Club.
Li has successfully advanced to final qualifying before, but this attempt was different as he transitioned from chasing the dream of playing professionally to grad school at Carnegie Mellon University.
“I graduated in ’21 from CMU and tried to play professional golf right after graduating, so I needed a little break to enjoy the game again essentially,” Li explained to PGN. “There was a little bit of burnout and just a lot of stress trying to do it for a living. I played in qualifying last year and was pretty disappointed, so I figured I wasn’t quite ready to play golf. It was kind of this weird stage in life where I was trying to get ready for grad school and all that stuff, so that took priority over golf. Now that I am graduating here and have a job lined up, I am a little freer and that helped when it came to the qualifier.”
Li’s play May 1 allowed for him to post a 3-under 67, earning co-medalist honors along with amateur Jack Hartman at the Country Club of York.
As he explained Li, the day as a whole was fun and it was Li’s first competitive round of golf since U.S. Open qualifying last year. His fast start of birdies on each of the opening two holes helped reduce his nerves.
It was a round where he recorded one bogey but overall played both freely and confidently. A lot of good memories returned allowing him to enjoy his time. With a friend on his bag, it made it easier to find his love for golf and reasons.
“Golf such a special game to me and to everyone who plays it,” offered Li. “I’ve played it since I was very young, but pretty much my entire life it’s been about competition and being better but it’s hard when you go to a level and you spend so much time and it’s hard to separate those two things when you just do it competitively for so long. This last couple of months have been not just about enjoying the results, but the process. The process of getting better and enjoying while being out there and getting better even if it is not where I was.”
The round allowed Li to further build upon the trust he has with himself, tuning everyone else out and understanding that perfection was not needed.
Li could have gone with the local qualifier at Quicksilver Golf Club just over two weeks later but given his game and feeling that the Country Club of York is a difficult test for the entire field, where posting an under-par round gave him a better chance of making the field, that he correctly determined was the correct move.
Since qualifying, Li graduated CMU with his master’s in business analytics and has a job now where he will work for the Pittsburgh Penguins doing data analytics.
Practice time will be carved out come Monday Li will attempt to qualify for the U.S. Open getting his desired site Woodmont Country Club North Course.
A total of 84 players will be competing for an unknown number of spots. Also, among those expected in the field are Joseph Bramlett, Stewart Cink, Matt Jones, Marc Leishman, Isaiah Salinda, Brendan Steele and Peter Uihlein.
“It’s a big task ahead 36 holes in June,” Li concluded. “Knowing if I do the work I need to and put the effort in that I can regardless of it’s 30 minutes a day or all day, if I have confidence in myself, then good things will happen. That doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll make it to Oakmont, but it does mean I can be happy with how I play. At the end of the day that’s all I can ask for when I step on the tee on June 2nd.”
