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Golf-U.S. Open facts and figures

June 11 (Reuters) - The U.S. Open golf tournament will celebrate its 115th edition from June 18-21 when it is held for the first time in the Pacific Northwest on the links-style Chambers Bay layout in University Place, Washington. * The second of the year's four major championships, the U.S. Open is staged in mid-June with the final round, weather-permitting, played on the third Sunday of the month -- on Father's Day. * The U.S. Open is widely regarded as the toughest of the four majors with its traditional course set-up of narrow fairways, thick rough and firm, fast conditions combining to produce a severe mental challenge. * It was played for the first time as a 36-hole competition in a single day on October 4, 1895 at Newport Country Club in Newport, Rhode Island. Horace Rawlins, a 21-year-old Englishman, claimed the inaugural title. * The tournament was dominated by British players in the early years until John McDermott, in 1911, became the first winner who was born in the United States. * Two years later, Francis Ouimet at the age of 20 beat British golfing heavyweights Harry Vardon and Ted Ray in a playoff over 18 holes to win the 1913 U.S. Open at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, a victory that electrified the nation and set the tone for a pipeline of American winners. * By the end of World War Two, the U.S. Open had become an important world championship and gained a significant surge in popularity when Georgia amateur Bobby Jones dominated the event with four victories between 1923 and 1930. * Spectator tickets were sold for the first time in 1922 and, following a boom in entries, the United States Golf Association -- the tournament's organising body -- introduced sectional qualifying in 1924. * Jones, widely regarded as the greatest amateur of all time, won the last of his four Open titles at Interlachen in 1930 when he holed a 40-foot putt on the 18th green to clinch victory by two strokes from Macdonald Smith. * In 1950, just 16 months after breaking his pelvis, a shoulder, a rib and an ankle in a car accident that almost killed him, Ben Hogan played through extreme pain and nausea to win his second U.S. Open in an 18-hole playoff with George Fazio and Lloyd Mangrum at Merion. * Arnold Palmer's first shot in the final round of the 1960 Open at Cherry Hills set the tone for a brilliant closing round of 65 and one of the greatest last-day victory charges of all time in a major championship. * Aged 40, Jack Nicklaus improved his own U.S. Open scoring record by three strokes when he won the 1980 championship for a record-equalling fourth time with a 72-hole aggregate of 272 at Baltusrol Golf Club. * Hale Irwin, aged 45, became the oldest U.S. Open winner when he clinched the title for a third time after a playoff with journeyman Mike Donald at Medinah in 1990. * Tiger Woods, firmly established as the world number one, was in a class of his own as he romped to his first U.S. Open victory at Pebble Beach in 2000 by a tournament record 15 strokes, a closing four-under 67 putting him level with the Nicklaus benchmark of 12-under 272. * Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy, aged 22, confirmed his rich promise as a potential golfing great with a commanding eight-stroke victory in the 2011 U.S. Open at Congressional where he posted a tournament low of 16-under 268 for 72 holes. (Writing by Mark Lamport-Stokes in Los Angeles; Editing by Frank Pingue and Andrew Both)