The 2024 U.S. Open was held at Northbrook Sports Club in Hainesville, Illinois from July 24th - 28th. Northbrook is a venue that can be argued by many as the most elite for holding tournaments of this caliber in the entire country. Northbrook's phenomenal property provides a landscape with the perfect mixture of wide open spaces paired with big beautiful trees. The terrain has berms that allow for target shots over your head as well as under your feet, and bodies of water scattered throughout the club. The infrastructure is very good with the combination of the clubhouse and pavilion as well as the roads, cart paths, and parking areas. But most importantly, Northbrook's incredibly hard working family, headed by Brett and Cliff Seibert, as well as the members, have a strong vision in preparing for an event like this and work endlessly to ensure they deliver an event that will be talked about for years.
Northbrook brought Richard Faulds to be the Main Event Target Setter for the 2024 U.S. Open. As a seasoned and very accomplished Sporting Shooter, Richard understands championship style targets and knows how to challenge the competitors with unique, well thought out presentations and English Style Targets which was a nice touch to have here in the United States. The U.S. Open Main Event layout is three courses that amount to a total of two hundred targets shot from Friday through Sunday. Two of the three courses have sixty six targets and the other has sixty eight. Of the three courses, Beretta, Winchester, and CTV, all of them had a few memorable stations that brought about much attention and chatter amongst the competitors throughout the week. These stations were not ones you would see often at an American styled event and were nothing short of a grand challenge. Station 12 on the Beretta Course was an excellent display because there was a massive tree perfectly centered in front of the station where the shooters had to shoot a belly target right to left from the right side of the tree before shifting their barrels to the left side of the tree to shoot a fast right to left crosser going away under their feet. The Winchester Course had a massive tower from right to left that was a very far and fast black belly crosser, that was hit very few times throughout the week. Finally, the CTV course had a true pair of black battues that were lightning fast and traveling right to left where shooters were attempting the pair two different ways as their flight path crossed and interchanged.
At the end of the event, Anthony Matarese Jr. of New Jersey was victorious and claimed his fourth U.S. Open Title after a spectacular performance and honorable three day effort on tough layouts with a 185/200. Joseph Fanizzi was Runner Up with a 181/200, and Todd Hitch was Third with a 179/200. The Super Squad was in full effect and Matarese and Fanizzi were squadded together for the entirety of the Main Event and wound up placing first and second while Todd Hitch had shown strong shooting throughout the week giving him the one target lead over Matarese heading into the final day. Madison Sharpe secured the Ladies U.S. Open Main Event Title with a 167/200, Haylyn Hanks was Runner Up with a 164/200, and Alexandra Wampler was Third with a 159/200. In the FITASC Event, Connor Daniel won on some extremely difficult targets set by Brett Seibert. Connor shot a 92/100. Anthony Matarese was Runner up with a 91/100 and Cory Kruse was Third with a 90/100. In the Ladies FITASC, Gianna Santo won with an 82/100, Madison Sharpe was Runner Up with an 81/100 and Diane Sorantino was Third with an 81/100. This concludes the 2024 U.S. Open at Northbrook Sports Club. Hats off for an incredible event and certainly one for the books. The 2025 U.S. Open will be hosted by Providence Hill in Jackson, Mississippi from April 28th - May 4th.