The most emotional putt on U.S. Open Saturday? You probably missed it

OAKMONT, Pa. — When a siren sounded at Oakmont Country Club Friday evening, signaling the end of play for the day, just a handful of players were still on the course, putting the finishing touches on their second rounds. Among them was Philip Barbaree Jr., a 27-year-old pro from Shreveport, La., one of just 16 players who made their way into this 125th U.S. Open by surviving the pressure-cooker gauntlet of both local and final qualifying.

This is a big week for Barbaree, a former U.S. Junior Amateur champion who now plies his trade on the PGA Tour Americas. Barbaree has played in just one other U.S. Open (missing the cut at Shinnecock Hills in 2018) and has never made a cut on either the PGA or Korn Ferry tours. Getting to the weekend at Oakmont would mark a career milestone.

When play was suspended, Barbaree was at six over par — one within the cutline — but on his way to a bogey on the long par-3 8th, meaning when he returned to the course at 7:30 a.m. Saturday, to make the cut, he would need to par the uphill par-4 9th, which on Friday had played as the second-toughest hole on the course with a meaty 4.54 stroke average.

A four for the biggest made cut of his life.

Barbaree isn’t typically a leaderboard-watcher, but when you have 23 hours and 15 minutes to think about a single hole, you’d need to hibernate in a cave to not see or hear some stuff. In Barbaree’s case, he said he stumbled upon the cutline number when scrolling Instagram on Friday evening. That’s when he said to his wife Chloe, “I know where I stand, and now it just got a lot harder, so help me deal with it.”

Chloe isn’t just Barbaree’s bride, she’s also his caddie. Has been for the last year or so. Like many looper relationships, theirs started with a one-tournament trial, which led to another, then another. When Barbaree started to play well, he said, “I forced her to stick around.”

Chloe didn’t need much convincing. She loved the gig. Funnily enough, she’s neither a golfer nor does she even know much about the game, but she’s a plus-5 handicap when it comes to offering moral support. “He thinks that I bring a different perspective since I don’t have a golf background,” Chloe said Saturday at Oakmont. “I see things that maybe others wouldn’t see and point it out to him, and it just works.”

On Friday evening, when Philip began sweating the one-hole challenge he had ahead of him, Chloe helped calm his nerves by reminding him that he’d played excellent golf for two days on a brutally tough course and no matter what the result Saturday morning, he should feel emboldened by his performance.   

Pep talk aside, Philip had a restless night. That’s because he knew there was much more at stake than just weekend tee times at a major and a nice story for his grandchildren — one of the perks of making the cut at the U.S. Open is an exemption from the first stage of PGA Tour Q-school. “Oakmont is hard, but Q-school as a whole might be harder,” Philip said Saturday. “Just to be able to skip a stage, it’s huge.”

When Barbaree returned to Oakmont early Saturday morning, he cleaned up his bogey at the 8th, then girded himself for the ensuing par-4, a 465-yard bear that climbs a steep pitch toward the clubhouse. Hitting the fairway was essential. Barbaree succeeded with that task, smacking a 293-yard shot down the left side that left him 174 yards for his second to a front-right pin. His approach was good, not great, pulling up 32 feet short of the hole. His birdie try also was good, not great, stopping 5 feet, 2 inches short of its mark.  

Five feet that must have felt like 50.

On what was a gloomy, cloud-covered morning at Oakmont, Barbaree settled in over his ball, rocked back his putter and…holed perhaps the biggest putt of his life. When the ball disappeared, Barbaree raised his right arm, clenched his fist and thrust it downward.

“Yes! Let’s go!” one of his supporters barked from right of the green.

After collecting his ball from the hole, Barbaree removed his hat, paced to the front of the green and fell into Chloe’s arms.

Later, when asked to describe his feelings in the moment, Barbaree said: “Probably a lot of pent-up emotion and stress from sleeping last night or not sleeping last night, just knowing that I pretty much had to come out and make par on one of the hardest holes on the course — and then to actually do it, that’s what you practice for, that’s what you care about. To be able to pull off a shot like that when it matters, and then with her on the bag, it’s special.”

The couple couldn’t celebrate for long. They had another tee time, and soon. At 9:12 a.m., Philip, playing alongside a marker, went off in the first pairing of the third round. He’d shoot 75, dropping him to 14 over for the week, 18 shots behind Sam Burns’ lead.

But, really, Philip and Chloe had already won.