what does open mean in golf like us open or san diego open ex.

In golf, the term Open refers to a tournament that is open for anyone to join and is not restricted to a specific group. Golfers do not need to be invited or meet any prior qualifications.

The opposite of an Open is an Invitational. An Invitational is a tournament in which all competing players have received an invitation or have otherwise qualified for one automatically.

Any golfer can sign up to participate in a local Open tournament, while national Open tournaments, such as the U.S. Open, is made up of golfers who have advanced through these local qualifying events.

The U.S. Open is played annually on Father's Day weekend, and in 2012 falls on June 14-17. It will be played at Olympic Club in San Francisco this year. Tiger Woods will be looking for his first major title since 2008.