Liu, Lowe to play back-to-back at Open qualifier

Two of Long Island’s male teenage sensations, Jim Liu of Smithtown and Matt Lowe of Farmingdale, will play in back-to-back twosomes in the U.S. Open Sectional Qualifying Tournament June 4.

Liu, a former U.S. Junior Amateur champion and member of the U.S. Junior Ryder Cup team will play the first of his two rounds on the South Course of Canoe Brook Country Club in Summit, N.J. at 7 a.m. A high school junior who already has chosen Stanford, Liu will play alongside Cameron Wilson, who already is at Stanford. Wilson, a Connecticut resident, made the semifinals of the 2008 Met Amateur at Friar’s Head as a 15-year-old and won the Met Amateur the following year.

Lowe, former two-time Nassau County high school champion who made national headlines as the youngest entrant in the qualifying process for the 2009 U.S. Open (when he was 13), will tee off on the South Course at 7:10. He will play with Steven Swartz, a club pro from Harrisburg, Pa.

An as-yet undetermined number of spots in the U.S. Open—June 14-17 at the Olympic Club in San Francisco—will be awarded at Canoe Brook. A number of Long Islanders, and people with local ties are in the field. A full listing of starting times is available at the Metropolitan Golf Association’s website, www.mgagolf.org.