Not as many as you probably would have imagined being at a Major Championship. If you watched the opening round of the 123rd US Open on television, you most likely noticed that Los Angeles Country Club wasn’t exactly bursting at the seams.
The USGA is expecting a maximum of around 30,000 spectators on the property for each of the four competition rounds. This compares to approximately 260,000 fans that are expected to be at Royal Liverpool for the 151st Open next month.
However, there are a number of reasons for this, the main one being the “capacity limitations” cited by the USGA, which means ticket sales were limited for this year's edition of the US Open. The reported number of tickets sold per day is 22,000, with just 8,000 of those being general admission.
The remaining 14,000 are used for corporate - so suite, skybox and other private-club type tickets. Media, broadcast and player support takes that figure up to the 30,000-mark.
Due to the location of the North Course, which is hosting America’s national Open for the very first time, and the fact that LACC doesn’t have the infrastructure in place to hold large numbers of fans, the USGA was forced to impose limitations. No weekly badges were made available, and fans were limited to only two tickets per day.
There are a few other reasons why LACC looked rather empty as the players teed off during round one. Firstly, to accommodate the 156-man field, the action got underway at 06.45am (PDT) on Thursday, and those from the city of LA are not renowned for being early risers.
Secondly, anyone who has visited this part of America’s West Coast will tell you that no matter what the time of day, the traffic rarely tends to move with any great pace.
Taking all this into account, it wouldn’t be fair to criticise the good people of LA for not supporting this great tournament. Max Homa, who boasts the course record at LACC, certainly wasn't about to have a dig at his fellow Californians.
“The crowds are great or hefty in certain areas, but we're also coming last year from Boston where they're just louder there,” he said after round one. “Their decibel is just higher than ours is out here.
“People don't wake up quite as early I guess to get going. So I imagine by the afternoons and especially the weekend it will get nice and rowdy. But it definitely was a bit of a more subdued morning, which was quite lovely.”
