Former Temple star Brandon Matthews tees it up in his first U.S. Open

The month of June has been one of achievement and excitement for Brandon Matthews, and that all has happened before he even tees it up on Thursday morning at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass., to begin play in his first U.S. Open.

The former Temple All-American qualified for his initial career major last week at U.S. Open final qualifying in Purchase, N.Y., sinking an 8-foot birdie putt to gain his invitation. He immediately headed to the next Korn Ferry Tour stop in Greer, S.C., for the BMW Charity Pro-Am where he tied for 15th and secured enough points to earn a PGA Tour card for next season.

“Obviously, it’s been a lifelong dream of mine to play on the PGA Tour,” Matthews said Monday after arriving at the Open. “Being in the moment right now, having achieved it, is pretty surreal.”

The top 25 finishers on the Korn Ferry Tour points list all qualify for the 2022-23 PGA Tour. Matthews has reached the “fail-safe threshold for points” to win his card but said the goal is to finish No. 1 on the KFT money list — he currently ranks third — before advancing to the big tour.

» READ MORE: Curtis Cup players are in awe of iconic Merion Golf Club

Before he can do that, however, Matthews, 27, is hoping that the momentum of his productive season and recent events will bring him success at The Country Club, where he reached the quarterfinals of the 2013 U.S. Amateur just before the start of his sophomore season with the Owls.

“The U.S. Open is the peak of major championship golf,” he said. “Obviously, Augusta is Augusta, that’s never going to change. Everyone dreams about winning the Masters. But as far as difficult conditions go and testing your game, there’s nothing like the U.S. Open.

“I’ll really see where my game is at this week and that’s so great for many reasons. Any time I play at a high level like this, whether it’s the couple of PGA Tour events that I’ve played or whatever it may be, I’ve learned so much every week about what I need to do in order to make sure that I compete consistently on that high level. So I’m excited because I really think my game is at the point where I can compete on a weekly basis at that high level.

“Right now, I’m just in that point where I’m making one very little mistake every round or some events, maybe having one round of golf where things just don’t go my way. So it would be nice if this week was where everything came together and we didn’t have those little hiccups.”

Although there have been some changes to The Country Club course for the Open since 2013, Matthews, one of the longest hitters on the Korn Ferry Tour, recognizes most of the routing and some of the holes.

“It’s really nice to be able to play my first Open at a place where I’ve had success and feel very comfortable at,” he said.

Matthews, who lives in Jupiter, Fla., but still plays out of his hometown of Dupont, Pa., near Scranton, advanced to the Korn Ferry Tour at the end of the 2021 PGA Tour Latinoamerica season when he won two tournaments and finished first on the money list. He won in his fourth event of the 2022 KFT season, the Astara Golf Championship in Bogota, Colombia, one week after he tied for second at the Panama Championship.

He had a run of five consecutive missed cuts in April and May before getting his game back together. He said only twice did he realistically not have a chance to make the cut coming down to the last three holes on a Friday, and in the others he missed by one or two strokes.

“It was more or less trying to get my game back to a position where I was feeling a little bit more consistent, putting a little bit better,” he said. “My golf swing kind of got a little away from me, and just tightening that back up and taking a couple of weeks and realizing that, OK, I might not play my best golf here, but I have to stick with what I’m doing in order to make sure it gets good in a few weeks.

“I was proud of myself for doing that, not getting really caught up in just playing good golf in the present. I was more concerned about the process of what it was going to be in a few weeks once I got comfortable.”

Matthews has flirted with competing in the U.S. Open before. In 2013 at Merion Golf Club, he was the first alternate out of the Purchase, N.Y., qualifier and spent the early part of the week hitting balls and chipping and putting, but never got the chance to replace any of the exempt contestants.

He said being an Open alternate, combined with strong performances at a number of national amateur events plus the U.S. Amateur, led him to “understand that my game could stack up at a national level with some of the best players in the world.”

Now he’s on that stage with them again.

“I’m looking forward to just a great week because of where I feel my game is at, and where I feel it’s trending,” he said.