Golf is cruel. Anyone who plays the game at any level has felt its brutality.

Even a player seemingly at the top of the world can find himself or herself humbled at the game’s feet. The U.S. Open, held this year at famed Merion Golf Club in Ardmore, Penn., is the absolute peak of golf’s brutality.

And yet golfers are a strange breed. Many — especially Americans — revere the U.S. Open above all other golf tournaments. The Masters is incredible, but the field is relatively austere and, therefore, elite. But the U.S. Open is the one anyone can play in. And once they get there, it is a hellishly difficult test, all long rough, fast greens and treacherous hole locations.

Against that backdrop, enter Brandon Matthews, a Temple University freshman who had designs on playing in his first U.S. Open in his college backyard. And when his approach shot settled at the base of a tree on his 36th and final hole of the day in the qualifier held at Old Oaks and Century Country Clubs near Westchester, N.Y., it seemed his chances were dashed.

Needing a par on the last hole to qualify, Matthews took relief and a stroke penalty from the tree and holed out the pitch for par to post two-under par, setting off a wild, leaping reaction. The highest of highs in golf.

Half an hour later, Matthews was crushed to find out that amateur Gavin Hall had birdied his last four holes to post four-under, ousting Matthews down to the first alternate spot.

In a nutshell, that’s golf, and that’s sectional qualifying for the U.S. Open, in recent years branded as “Golf’s Longest Day.”

The other qualifiers from the New York qualifier included Geoffrey Sisk, who will play in his seventh U.S. Open next week — the fifth for which he has qualified at both the local and sectional levels.

Century and Old Oaks hosted one of 11 sectional qualifiers on Monday. They covered a range of field sizes, strengths and locations. The biggest of the bunch took place at two clubs in the Columbus, Ohio area — Brookside Golf & Country Club and The Lakes Golf & Country Club — where 15 professionals, all with some sort of status on the PGA Tour, qualified. The last seven spots came from an 11-man playoff, from which the likes of Sang Moon Bae and Aaron Baddeley earned their spots.

Another large group of Tour players competed for nine spots at Colonial Country Club outside Memphis, near the site of this week’s FedEx St. Jude Classic. Qualifiers from Colonial included Jerry Kelly, Kevin Sutherland and Joe Ogilvie.

Other qualifiers in California, Georgia, Maryland, Missouri, Texas and Washington yielded a number of other pros and amateurs who will tee it up in two Thursdays’ time at Merion.

One qualifier, held at the Ritz-Carlton Members Club in Bradenton, Fla., needed a second day in order to decide its qualifiers. Irish amateur Kevin Phelan and 2011 Kent State University graduate John Hahn got in, but the third qualifying spot had to wait for a Tuesday morning playoff for Trump International Golf Club (Fla.) Head Pro John Nieporte to beat 15-year-old amateur David Snyder.

As much relief is being felt by some players tonight, there is an ocean of disappointment and unrewarded exhaustion and frustration besides. Perhaps the most notable “miss” this year was two-time U.S. Open champion Lee Janzen, who played his first 18 holes at the qualifier at Woodmont Country Club in Maryland only to find out that the metal spikes on his golf shoes were not allowed at that particular qualifier, leading to his disqualification. Janzen took responsibility for the error, admitting he glossed over the local rule before taking to the course, but the disqualification has raised concern over the inconsistency of that particular rule at different qualifying sites.

A number of other players will have to watch, rather than play in this year’s U.S. Open. Arnold Palmer’s grandson, Sam Saunders, was on the wrong end of a three-for-one playoff at that same Maryland site, where Fred Funk also missed qualifying. Elsewhere, the likes of Jeff Overton, Ryo Ishikawa, Trevor Immelman, Stuart Appelby, Charles Howell III, Ben Curtis, Tommy Gainey all failed to qualify from Columbus, Ohio while Ben Crane, Jeff Maggert, John Merrick, Harris English, David Duval, Stephen Ames and Chris DiMarco could not make it out of the Memphis qualifier.

As exhilarating as this success must be, the prize is the most grueling 72-hole test of golf imaginable. Good luck, gentlemen.

Click here to see all the sectional qualifier results on the USGA’s website.