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Teen prodigy Michelle Wie will be among 153 golfers playing for 22 berths in the men's US Open championship on June 5 here at Canoe Brook Country Club.
Officials announced Friday the total number of players competing and berths available for the 36-hole sectional qualifying event for second major of the year, to be staged June 15-18 at Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, New York.
Wie, 16, earned her way into sectional qualifying by advancing as the medalist from a local qualifying event May 15 in Hawaii. The American star was among 8,584 US Open entrants seeking one of about 80 available US Open berths.
Wie has chosen to play here in part because she will be competing later that week at the LPGA Championship, the second women's major championship of the year, in Maryland.
US Open men's qualifying begins Monday in Tokyo and continues June 5 and 6 here and at 12 other US sites.
Wie became the first woman since Babe Didrikson Zaharias in 1945 to make the cut on a men's international golf tour when she reached the weekend at an event in Seoul earlier this month.
It was Wie's eighth bid to make a cut against male pros. She tried several times to make the cut in a US PGA event but missed out each time.
Wie will play in her first European PGA Tour event next September at the European Masters in Crans-sur-Sierre, Switzerland. Britain's Laura Davies is the only woman to play in a European Tour event, doing so in Australia in 2004.
Wie has also accepted sponsor invitations to play at US PGA events in July and September and will play in the LPGA majors.
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AFP 262145 GMT 05 06
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