The full 2014 U.S. Open field of 156 qualifiers is now set for Pinehurst

The road to the 2014 U.S. Open varied dramatically for the 156 players in the field. For some, their past accomplishments were enough to earn them an automatic spot in the field. For others, it took multiple rounds of qualifying and a break or two to get in. Regardless of how they got there, the 156 players in the field are now ready to tee it up at Pinehurst No. 2 on Thursday.

In addition to playing one’s way in through qualifying, there were a dozen other routes for players to gain entry into the U.S. Open. Eight players made the field as winners of a U.S. Open in the last 10 years. Another dozen made it in from having won on of the other three major championships in the last five years. The winner and runner-up of the 2013 U.S. Amateur championship are in. Porteous, the British Amateur Champion would have been in the field had he not turned pro in April after the Masters (he missed qualifying at the England sectional but just one shot). Players Champions in the last three years, the 2013 U.S. Senior Open winner and the top-10 finishers from the 2013 U.S. Open were also given bids.

If players hadn’t checked any of the boxes above, they could also get in by being one of the final 30 qualifiers for the FedExCup TOUR Championship. After that, standing in the Official World Golf Rankings came into play. Any player ranked in the top 60 in the OWGR on May 24, 2014 earned entry. Between the 11 qualifying standards above and the first 79 sectional qualifiers given a bid, there were just five open spots in the field heading into this past weekend. Players ranked in the top 60 in the world as of today (Monday, June 9) were given a spot with the remaining open bids given to alternates from sectional qualifiers. Kevin Na’s second-place finish at the Memorial Tournament jumped him into the top 60 (from 70th to 40th) in the world last week while Bernd Wiesberger also moved into the top 60 with a strong showing on the Euro Tour at the Lyoness Open in his home country of Austria. A day after losing in a playoff at Memorial, Na showed up at the Columbus sectional qualifier and promptly withdrew, knowing his new No. 40 ranking would be good enough a week later. Wiesberger moved from 69th in the world to 60th after losing in a playoff, opening up a trip across the pond to North Carolina

Although Woods will be notably absent, the 156-player field is still an impressive one. There are 10 former U.S. Open Champions in the group, including two-time champions Ernie Els and Retief Goosen. There are more than 20 major champions int the field.

Here is a complete look at the final 2014 U.S. Open field and how each player qualified. A number of players qualified in more than one way (e.g. Phil Mickelson was exempt in six different ways), but each player is listed under the first available exemption set by the USGA.

Late Sunday night, the USGA then rounded out the field by naming the three alternates from various sectional qualifying sites last week. The process for who gets in off the alternates list is nebulous, and no one really knows how they pick them or if there’s any kind of order or standing on that list. But Cameron Wilson, Craig Barlow and Brandon McIver were the final three selected from sectional qualifying to complete the field.