The inaugural U.S. Open was conducted by the United States Golf Association (USGA) in October 1895, just one year after the USGA was formed. It was held at the nine-hole course of Newport (R.I.) Golf and Country Club, sharing center stage with the first U.S. Amateur championship, which was played on the same week at the same course. Both championships had originally been scheduled for September of that year but were postponed because of a conflict with a more established sports spectacle, the America's Cup yacht races.
The initial U.S. Open featured 10 professionals and one amateur. It was a 36-hole competition, which meant four trips around the course in one day. The first winner was 21-year-old Horace Rawlins, an English professional who was the assistant at the host course. Rawlins earned the $150 first prize by shooting 91-82--173. The overall prize money for the first U.S. Open was a mere $335. Rawlins also received a gold medal and custody of the Open Championship Cup for his club for one year.
In its second year of existence, the tournament grew from 11 competitors to 35. James Foulis won that second championship, held at Shinnecock Hills Golf Course on Long Island in New York.
The tournament began to evolve with a variety of rule changes. The USGA increased the length of the championship to 72 holes in 1898, with 36 holes played on each of two days.
Amateurs and the mainly British wave of immigrant golf professionals coming to the United States comprised the majority of participants in the event's early years, with Scot Willie Anderson dominating in the event's first decade by winning the tournament four times (1901, 1903, 1904 and 1905).
John J. McDermott became the first native-born American winner in 1911, and he repeated as champion in 1912. The following year provided one of the U.S. Open's more memorable results, when 20-year-old amateur Francis Ouimet surprised the golf world by defeating well-known professionals Harry Vardon and Ted Ray in a playoff to win the trophy.
The 1920s brought more changes to the U.S. Open, with spectator tickets sold for the first time in 1922 and sectional qualifying for the tournament introduced two years later as entry applications began to grow. In 1926, the USGA made another change to the tournament format by extending the event to a three-day competition -- with golfers playing 18 holes each on the first two days and then contesting the final 36 holes on day three.
Georgia amateur Bobby Jones helped the sport and tournament gain popularity during that decade, winning four U.S. Opens between 1922 and 1930. In 1933, John Goodman became the fifth and last amateur to win the U.S. Open.
The U.S. Open was not played between 1942 and 1945, due to World War II. Once re-established as a top international event later in the decade, Texan Ben Hogan emerged as one of the top players in the sport's history by claiming four U.S. Open titles in a six-year span between 1948 and 1953.
The next year, the tournament received national television coverage for the first time as Ed Furgol won at Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield, N.J., which has hosted the U.S. Open seven times -- the second most in history, to the eight contested at Oakmont Country Club in Pennsylvania.
Arnold Palmer claimed only one U.S. Open title, but it came in dramatic fashion in 1960 when he shot a final-round 65 to come from seven shots back to take the trophy. Two years later, Palmer was tied atop the leaderboard with rookie professional Jack Nicklaus after 72 holes at Oakmont but lost out after an 18-hole playoff on the next day.
The 1962 victory was the first of four U.S. Open victories for Nicklaus, who also triumphed in 1967, 1972 and 1980 to tie the record set by Anderson, Jones and Hogan. The Golden Bear was denied a fifth title by Tom Watson at Pebble Beach in 1982, the first year that the tournament's opening two rounds were televised live, by the cable network ESPN.
Curtis Strange became the first golfer in nearly 40 years to capture back-to-back U.S. Open titles (in 1988 and 1989), the year before Hale Irwin became the oldest player to win the tournament. His 1990 victory was his third U.S. Open title and came after a birdie on the first sudden-death hole after Irwin's 18-hole playoff with Mike Donald had ended level.
Lee Janzen, Payne Stewart and Ernie Els each won the U.S. Open twice in the 1990s, before Tiger Woods produced one of the event's most dominating performances -- winning by an amazing 15 strokes at Pebble Beach in 2000. Woods went on to win two more titles, including a dramatic win in 2008 that was not decided until he birdied the 91st hole after being tied with Rocco Mediate after 72 holes of regulation play as well as the 18-hole playoff.
The past decade has also seen the first public course host a U.S. Open, with the Bethpage State Park Black Course (in Farmingdale, N.Y.) serving as the site in 2002. International qualifying sites were added in 2005, and the champion that year at North Carolina's Pinehurst Resort was Michael Campbell, who qualified in England.