By Tony Webeck

Australia’s representation at next month’s US Open at Torrey Pines has received a sizeable boost but Jason Day remains on the outside looking in. The United States Golf Association announced on Monday that an additional 27 players had achieved the qualification parameters necessary to tee it up from June 17-20 with four more Aussies now exempt. Marc Leishman and Cameron Smith had already qualified by virtue of playing in last year’s PGA TOUR Tour Championship and have now been joined by Adam Scott, Matt Jones, Brad Kennedy and Wade Ormsby. Scott (39th) and Jones (55th) have qualified as a result of being inside the top 60 in the Official World Golf Rankings following the US PGA Championship while Kennedy and Ormsby have been rewarded for their 2020 Order of Merit wins on the PGA Tour of Australasia and Asian Tour respectively. The first of 10 qualifying tournaments was played in the US on Monday but 2015 US PGA champion Jason Day has already stated that he won’t attend qualifying. That now means that to play his way in Day must progress from his current position of No.67 in the world rankings into the top 60 following The Memorial tournament next week where he finished fourth last year. There are opportunities for the likes of Jason Scrivener, Scott Hend and Min Woo Lee to still play their way into the field in a three-event qualifying series being conducted on the European Tour. Starting with the Betfred British Masters two weeks ago and concluding over the next two weeks at the Made in HimmerLand and Porsche European Open tournaments, 10 places will be awarded to those with the highest aggregate points total. Other notable additions to a US Open field that now stands at 76 were two-time Masters champion Bubba Watson, Englishman Tommy Fleetwood, Patrick Cantlay, Paul Casey, Si Woo Kim and Lee Westwood.