Fourteen years ago, Shane Bertsch went to Woodmont Country Club in Rockville, Md., and qualified for his first and only U.S. Open, coincidentally at San Francisco’s Olympic Club, the site of this week’s national championship.
If it worked once, it was sure to work again, right?
After arriving in Baltimore after midnight after a top-10 finish at a Nationwide tournament in Raleigh, N.C., Bertsch, an Evergreen High School graduate, was in the first group off at the sectional qualifier. He promptly went out and fired a 3-under-par 69 to put himself in the mix in the 76-player field, with seven berths at stake.
He had about 20 minutes to devour lunch before heading back out for his second round. It wasn’t until he made the turn of that second 18 that Bertsch realized where he stood. A second-round 71 was good enough to win by two shots and punch his ticket to his second U.S. Open.
“It would have been easier to fly to Memphis,” Bertsch said of the site of the PGA Tour’s St. Jude Classic, which he played in and Sunday finished tied for 49th. “I tried that last year, and it’s ridiculously hot down here and I didn’t even think about it.”
It was the right decision, and now he gets to spend the week in San Francisco.
“It’s nice to get another opportunity,” Bertsch said.
In what can only be called a snakebit career, Bertsch has overcome a bout of vertigo — the same affliction that hindered David Duval’s career — as well as a broken ankle and some bad luck.
“Right when I was peaking and starting to come into my own, I just had a series of unfortunate events,” said Bertsch, 42. “I feel like I’m back on track now, and have plenty of years left and even more years of experience under my belt.”
One of those unfortunate events came in 2009, when Bertsch went to a tournament near the end of the season and assumed, by word he had received from a PGA Tour official, that his spot in the top 125 on the money list (he was 124) was safe, by rules of a medical exemption, to retain his card.
It wasn’t the case. Bertsch dropped two spots — he broke his ankle three days later — and was forced to go back to Q-school in 2010 to earn his card back.
Bertsch is taking nothing for granted, even the momentum that comes with not only qualifying for the U.S. Open but making the cut at the St. Jude Classic.
He knows the course at the Olympic Club, where he last played in 1998, will be tough.
“It’s a beautiful property and an incredible place, and I’m really looking forward to it,” he said. “I know one thing for sure: It’s very, very tough, and it’s probably going to play even tougher this year because the USGA might have something to prove after Rory McIlroy’s runaway last year. That’s the talk of the tour, anyway.
“They really don’t have to do anything tricky to make it hard, because it’s a hard course every day of the year.”
Jon E. Yunt: 303-954-1354, or jyunt@denverpost.com
