Chris Thompson prepares to putt on the 17th green during the third round of the Byron Nelson Championship golf tournament, Saturday, May 17, 2014, in Irving, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

His lone competitor for the final of three U.S. Open spots at the sectional qualifier played at Springfield (Ohio) Country Club had finished a couple of holes earlier as former Kansas University golfer Chris Thompson walked up the 18th fairway toward his mammoth drive.

Thompson to caddy Jim Clement, one of his pals he plays rounds with at Lawrence Country Club: “Do you know what I need?”

He didn’t mean what club. He meant what score.

Clement: “Well, I know. Do you want to know?”

Thompson: “Yeah.”

Clement: “We make a par, we’re in.”

Thompson, 37, made a par and qualified for the U.S. Open, two weeks after qualifying for his first PGA Tour event.

“They don’t really have leaderboards, but they do have live scoring and you can ask the person,” Thompson said. “I didn’t know where I stood until 18. I just tried to keep my head down and stay aggressive. I couldn’t take it anymore, so Jim told me I needed to make par.”

Thompson responded by hitting a wedge from 125 yards out to about 18 feet, missed the putt by 2 feet on the low side and sank the clincher.

Brian Stuard of Jackson, Michigan, had the low score of 11-under 129, defending his title as low medalist at Monday’s Springfield district qualifier, which included 63 golfers.

Will Grimmer, a senior in high school from Cincinnati, finished one stroke ahead of Thompson and is headed to the U.S. Open at the age of 17. Thompson was in his first of two All-American seasons at KU the year Grimmer was born.

Thompson teed off the back side for his morning round and birdied the first two holes with a pair of threes.

“That puts you in a good frame of mind,” Thompson said. “I played pretty solid, but three-putted the last hole, which made lunch taste worse.”

Thompson selected the Donald Ross-designed course among 10 options across the country based on how it looked to him online.

“It’s really similar, tee to green, to Lawrence Country Club,” Thompson said. “It’s pretty short, but you still can hit drivers. I decided to hit driver everywhere because the greens were pretty severe, so it was important to hit the right spot in the green, so I wanted to be as close as possible.”

Clement called the greens “nearly diabolical.”

Playing the best golf of his life at the age of 37, Thompson qualified for the Byron Nelson two weeks prior to Monday’s U.S. Open qualifier and proceeded to make the cut in his first tour event. Club manufacturers set up at PGA tournaments, supplying tournament players with whatever equipment they desire. Thompson took advantage by picking up a set of TaylorMade irons and a Callaway Big Bertha driver.

“I drove it fantastic,” Thompson said.

Clement said Thompson’s drives that flew off the Big Bertha were consistently “phenomenal.”

Thompson’s plans called for him to return to Lawrence to work on his game. He need not worry about booking a flight to North Carolina.

Fellow Jayhawk and LCC member Gary Woodland has taken care of that for him. Woodland receives a set amount of free flight hours from NetJets for wearing the logo. One of the first texts Thompson received after qualifying was from Woodland, offering a seat on the jet to the big-time, as big-time as golf gets.

This year’s U.S. Open will be played at Pinehurst No. 2 in Pinehurst, North Carolina. Thompson said he has played at golf courses in Pinehurst, but never at that famed course. Then again, he never had played at Springfield Country Club either, and that didn’t prevent him from earning a tee time every golfer craves.