With plenty of past experience in the U.S. golf majors, Cortez’s Micah Rudosky has seen several close calls to making the cut.
Over the Independence Day holiday at the U.S. Senior Open in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, Rudosky looks to stick around for the weekend fireworks.
An opening round 4-over 75 has Rudosky dreaming big heading into Friday’s action at SentryWorld, as he seeks to break into the top 60 in the field to earn the chance to play on Saturday and Sunday. The Conquistador Golf Course professional has yet to make a major cut, but is in the midst of a logjam in the middle of the leaderboard after Thursday’s round.
After the dust settled, Rudosky found himself tied for 41st place heading into Friday’s cut day.
Rudosky played in the morning session beginning on the back nine of the par-71 track in the heart of America’s DairyLand and started off brightly. The 52-year-old pro parred the opening two holes before dropping in a birdie putt on the par-3, 178-yard 12th hole – putting Rudosky as one of the very few golfers in red numbers.
After dropping a shot two holes later, Rudosky maintained even-par golf until the his eighth hole of the day. Making the turn at +1, Rudosky proceeded to continue a string of five straight pars, before back-to-back bogeys dropped him outside the top 20. Rudosky rallied with a sand save par on his 16th hole of the day to help him cap a 38 on the back nine.
His opening round has him tied with household names like Tom Lehman and Mike Weir, while sitting seven strokes off the lead, held by Australia’s Rod Pampling. Only four players navigated the opening round at SentryWorld under par, setting up an intriguing battle against the course over the next 24 hours.
Rudosky made his second straight U.S. Senior Open by virtue of taking top-two at a qualifying field at the New Mexico State University Golf Course in Las Cruces.
He aims to improve on his finish from the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship in May, where he landed below the cut line with a two-day total of +11. Rudosky will start action on Friday in the afternoon session, teeing off at 2:36 p.m. local time for his push to make the cut.
