BROOKLINE, Mass. – He’s the most unlikely player on the pitch, and we’re not exaggerating. Fran Quinn is far from the only 57-year-old to play in a major championship, but he didn’t get his start time here thanks to his past wins. It wasn’t a special exemption for a Hall of Famer. He played his way through local and final qualifiers, and now he’s at the US Open in his home state of Massachusetts. Fran Quinn deserved it. He is the oldest qualifier for this tournament since at least 1982 when the USGA started tracking such things.
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Quinn is a good companion, and we mean that as a compliment. A man who has been playing professional golf since graduating from Northwestern in 1988. He has had a PGA Tour card on a few different occasions, most recently in 2010, but has only one top 10 in 71 career departures. The meaty part of his golfing life was spent on what is now the Korn Ferry Tour, where he played over 366 events and won four times. He now plies his trade – again, a true lifelong golfer – on the PGA Tour Champions, where he has played full-time since 2017.
His son, Owen, is also a professional golfer. He’s also behind his dad’s most unlikely run at Brookline.
“I was playing Tucson on the Champions Tour, and my son called me and said he was playing (a Local Qualifier) at Taconic,” Quinn said. “I said, ‘Why don’t you put us both in.’ I said, you know what, let’s both go. Let’s both go to the US Open this year. “
Quinn hadn’t even tried to qualify for a US Open since 2014, when he also made it through both qualifying stages and then made the cut at No. 2 Pinehurst, opening with an under-68 that left him had tied for second before an eventual T-52 finish. His career nearly came to an end when he fractured his glenoid, a bone in his shoulder, after running into a pothole in New York in 2019. Quinn underwent surgery in July, but n was able to raise his arm only to shoulder height until a second surgery in June 2020 threw his career a lifeline. Fast forward two years, and his game had improved to the point where he felt he was going to try the US Open.
Quinn’s two boys shot one for 71 in local qualifying in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and both competed in final qualifying at Old Oaks and Century in Purchase, NY. The elder Quinn bettered his son in the first round of the 36-hole day at Century, 69 to 70, only for Owen to be out of contention in his first nine at Old Oaks. Fran, however, never fell out of favor.
“After 27 holes it got really real,” he said, “because I had four cents for the day until a few untimely bogeys at the end made things tighter.”
Tight indeed. Quinn finished two under for all 36 holes and earned a spot in an eight-for-three qualifier to the Country Club. This playoff could have served as an advertisement for all that is good with the qualifying process: there were three mini-tour pros, the best 17-year-old player in the country; a college stud player; a longtime Korn Ferry Tour player, PGA Tour cardholder; and Quinn.
All eight players parried the first playoff hole. The second, the 18th from Old Oak, is an uphill par 5 that youngsters could easily reach. Quinn stoked her drive down the rough right and was forced to lay down, only to hit her third inside two feet for a birdie tap-in. The perfect way for the geezer to enter.
And so Quinn can now play what he says will be his last major championship just a 45 minute drive from his home town of Worcester. As for expectations, Quinn fully believes he’s physically capable of hanging out. He has no intention of turning 80-80, smiling at his friends and family in the crowd and stopping there.
“Obviously these kids are hitting him and hitting him a lot farther than me,” Quinn said. “But I, too, always move it quite far. Very competitive. I expect to play well.
“It’s a home game, I thought, why not give it a chance? And I look back, in ’88, the last time they had the Open here, I missed (the qualifying) by one at Purchase. And I was sitting on that training ground and my dad, God rest his soul, he had his arm around me and he said, ‘Franny, you’re gonna play a lot of these “And who would have thought that 34 years later, I would be playing at the Country Club, in Boston, at 57. Pretty amazing.”
