By Nolan Hughes
Storylines ran rampant during the third and final round of 2025 U.S. Open presented by Go Bowling qualifying.
Andrew Anderson maintained his lead, followed closely by former major champions Jakob Butturff, Anthony Simonsen and Chris Via; rookie Cam Crowe climbed from 47th place to 13th; and 18-year-old high schooler Landin Jordan advanced to match play for the second consecutive year.
But the resilience of two Indiana-born brothers stole the show at Indianapolis’ Royal Pin Woodland.
EJ and Zac Tackett seized two of the 24 spots in the major championship match play field, each firing blistering final rounds to surge into the cut number.
The elder brother, who has made the U.S. Open finals each of the past three years, started the day 185 pins outside the cut. After EJ started his final eight-game round with 186, that margin only grew.
Then EJ started Game 2 with the front-nine — he said he knew then and there he was going to make a run. He averaged more than 240 over his final seven games to ultimately make the cut by 21 pins.
“They pay for totals, not what you do in the first game,” EJ said. “Even though I had two bad days and I was minus coming into today, I still had the opportunity to come in, put a special block together and give myself an opportunity to continue to bowl in this championship. That’s one of the great things about this tournament. You can’t just go out here and average 230 like nothing’s going on. I fought like a dog to be able to average 234 today.”
On the 52-foot pattern, EJ decided to play in between where the majority of the field played, leaving him on a proverbial island. He worked with Motiv’s tour rep Brett Spangler to track where competitors were playing to capitalize on each new pair. Their plan worked to near perfection.
“When you see somebody do something like that, and you genuinely wonder if anybody else in the world can do it, you’re pretty surprised,” Spangler, who has known Tackett for almost 20 years, said. “He keeps doing it, so maybe I shouldn’t be.”
Hours later, Zac made a run of his own. He closed with games of 237, 267, 197 and 244 to surpass his older brother by six pins.
