U.S. Open 2025: Watch tour pro hole putt to make the cut at Oakmont as all the emotions come out

OAKMONT, Pa. — It was an admittedly restless night for Philip Barbaree Jr. It’s hard to sleep when one of the biggest moments of your professional golf life is awaiting at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday morning.

Barbaree, a 27-year-old who won the U.S. Junior Amateur in 2015, has struggled to try to find his way in the world of professional golf since finishing college at LSU in 2021. He Having advanced through both Local and Final Qualifying to earn a spot into the 2025 U.S. Open, he was playing in a PGA Tour/Korn Ferry Tour event for only the eighth time. Ranked 1,013 in the World Ranking with status on the PGA Tour Americas, the opportunity presenting itself to Barbaree at Oakmont was massive, but after an opening-round 76 on Thursday, the dream looked like it might end earlier than the Louisiana native hoped.

Yet that’s where something impressive took over, a fire ignited by the desire to seize the moment. Playing Friday afternoon, Barbaree started off the 10th tee and made the turn at seven over par for the tournament after a birdie and two bogeys. That left him right on the projected cut line. He impressively birdied two of his next four holes, giving himself a little cushion, only to make a bogey on the par-4 seventh.

And that’s when the pouring rain came late Friday, forcing play to be suspended at 8:15 p.m. with Barbaree and 12 others still needing to finish their final rounds.

“Oakmont’s tough when there’s perfect weather and then when it was raining sideways last night it was extremely tough,” Barbaree told the Pittsburgh Golf Now after the round. “I was actually happy to get out of the rain a little bit and be able to come out here in the morning with no rain. That part was great, but it wasn’t easy sleeping knowing exactly what I had to do.”

When Barbaree returned to Oakmont on Saturday, the course was much wetter than the previously day, an inch of rain falling overnight. Barbaree proceeded to bogey the par-3 eighth hole to fall back to seven over. As he made his way to the par-4 ninth, he knew that he had to make par to make the cut. He calmly found the fairway off the tee then hit his approach to 32 feet.

When he left his birdie effort on the now slower greens five feet short, he gave himself a little tester to try to make the cut. After four backoffs, he stepped up and did this:

Here's another look at it too, where you can see his fan base celebrate as well!

The emotion was understandable. That’s his wife, Chloe, caddieing for him and the first to embrace him.

“It was a lot of emotion, a lot of pent-up emotion and hard work,” Barbaree said. “The people around me that have helped me get to this point, a lot of them are here. Just to be able to do that for them as well was a relief but also very exciting.

“I knew where I stood last night and so didn’t sleep a whole lot, but whenever I got up there on the green, I was hoping to have a little shorter par putt. I tried to take my time on it, but at some point, you kind of have to let it go and whatever happens happens. Thankfully this time it went in, so I’m very thankful for that.”

Coincidentally, Barbaree faced a similar situation at Final Qualifying in Florida, rain delaying the finish of the 36-hole event overnight and requiring him to comeback the next morning to lock up his spot in the U.S. Open field.

“Having done that so recently, coming back out and being able to play this morning, all of that I think helped prepare me for today,” he said. “At some point, you kind of have to embrace it and say ‘this is kind of the cards I’ve been dealt,’ and try to go about it the best way I can.”

Making the cut in a major is big for many reasons. One of the hidden ones is it lesser know is that it moves you past certain qualifying stages for PGA Tour and KFT Q school. Not to mention, obviously the opportunity to make some money on the weekend at Oakmont.

As the last player to make the cut, Barbaree had the first tee time on Saturday at 9:12 a.m., playing solo—and very happy to be there.