It’s long been decreed by those dungeon masters of the United States Golf Association that U.S Open venues must have super-thin fairways and thick, chunky, chop-it-sideways rough. Thus, the first two times Pinehurst No.2 hosted the national championship (1999 and 2005), it was a beast more penal than Pentridge. Yet the USGA appears to have mellowed, and bucked the trend of punishment for the sake of it. And it’s been Pinehurst at the vanguard. And this year's U.S Open should be entertaining indeed.
Chi Chi's Idea
It was Chi Chi Rodriguez’s idea, but Lon Hinkle did it first – turn the 545-yard double-dog-leg par-5 eighth hole at the Inverness Club into a two-shotter by hitting the tee shot onto the neighbouring 17th fairway. It was the first round of the 1979 U.S Open. It so enraged the United States Golf Association they changed the hole mid-competition. It became all that Hinkle is remembered for.
What happened was this: Rodriguez said to Hinkle, “I found a shortcut and I’m going to cut 100 yards off the hole.” Hinkle liked the idea and was first up. He hit one-iron onto 17, two-iron onto eight green, two-putted, simple birdie. It helped him into a share of the lead (-1). The tee shot was the subject of reporter questioning post-round.
On the Friday Hinkle was surrounded by reporters again, this time in the locker room before his round. He was told that a spruce tree had magically appeared near the eighth tee, planted in the dead of night to block the path to the 17th fairway.
Hinkle thought it was hilarious. He played up to reporters and took the piss out of the USGA. Said stuff like, “No tree can hold me!” And that one didn’t, for it was but a straggly old thing which Hinkle easily cleared. He made birdie again – driver, six-iron, two-putts. Stick that in your pipes, sportscoats.
Hinkle would chop it around otherwise and end up 20 shots behind eventual winner Hale Irwin, who was more the USGA’s kind of guy. Serious face, steel mind, hit it straight, repeat. He wore glasses. And braces. He was the straightest hitter on the PGA Tour and Inverness would be the second of his three major championships, wedged between the U.S Opens of 1974 and 1990.
Punishment was long the USGA way. U.S Open courses had to sport skinny fairways, chop-it-sideways rough, tee-boxes set back ever-more prodigious distances. There would be one way to play these holes, and that was to hit the middle of the designated fairway. And the bastards would put bollards in the way if anyone digressed.
Yet the USGA, it appears, has bucked the trend in the last decade or so. And it’s been Pinehurst No.2 at the vanguard.
No.2
It worked for Penfold’s Bin 28, Chanel No.5 and that gang of Disney dwarves – just call the thing what it is. Pinehurst No.2 was named with all the creativity of a forensic audit and is one of nine similarly named courses on the 800-hectare Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina.
No.2 was designed by Donald Ross, opened for play in 1907 and is one example of his signature upturned saucer greens. Over the years the club’s committee types, prepping their baby for a visit by the USGA, heaped so much blood-and-bone into the rough, it created a beast more penal than Pentridge.
The Pinehurst people knew the USGA wanted Open courses to be really, really hard. The USGA was about heaping pain upon professional golfers at their annual U.S Open. These are people who like golf courses to come with the equivalent of nipple cramps and hot wax.
They even had their own “doctor” – Robert Trent Jones – who’d be drafted in to make potential courses harder and thus suitable for U.S Opens. The plan was, effectively, thicken rough so it’ll swallow a ball, narrow the fairways, grow the long stuff almost right to the green.
And thus, after committees had had their way and Trent Jones his, when the worthies of the USGA visited in the early ’90s, they were all over Pinehurst No.2. This place is really hard, they thought. Nothing a river of lava couldn’t improve, of course. But hashtag respect, Pinehurst curators. Hashtag respect.
In 2010, however, in a nod to modernity and progress, Pinehurst called in Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, whose plan was to return No.2 to Donald Ross’ less-penal original layout. More like their masterpiece Lost Farm at Barnbougle, less like a fist-fight in a hurt locker. It would still be challenging to score well, but there wouldn’t be only one way to play it.
They ripped out the rough, replaced it with sandy waste and tussocks of wiregrass, and returned the course to something better resembling Ross’ original, open design, which he said was “the fairest test of championship golf I have ever designed”.
Today, No.2 looks like flat Augusta, but with sandy waste and furry tussocks. There is pine straw under pine trees. Course architect and gun amateur Lukas Michel says it’s a beacon for sustainable golf in the world.
Michel is uniquely qualified to comment. He first played Pinehurst in the famous North and South Amateur Championship. When he won the 2019 U.S Mid-Amateur Championship and a place in the (November, Covid-delayed) Masters, he spent two weeks at Pinehurst honing his game. Today, he’s a Golf Course Design Associate with Clayton, DeVries and Pont, and one of the grasshoppers of Golf Australia magazine architecture editor, Mike Clayton.
Michel says No.2 “looks easy to the eye”.
“When you first look at it and play it, you stand on the tee and it’s relatively wide. It does tend to pinch where the long hitters hit it. But my first impression was, not too difficult – none of the rough or vegetation is so penal you can lose the ball,” Michel says.
“And then you start playing it and you realise it’s a little harder than it looks. Particularly around the greens.”
SHORT GRASS
Ah yes, Ross’ famous “upturned saucers”; elephant graveyards in the Himalayas. Michel reckons over the years they’ve become bigger. He also reckons it wasn’t Ross’ original intention to make them so elephant-like, nor that the greens should be Ross’ ‘signature’.
“Everyone talks about the raised greens with all the run-offs; they call them ‘typical Ross greens’. In fact, Ross didn’t build greens typically like that. His work at No.2 is more of an exception,” Michel says.
“The character of Pinehurst’s greens has come more from evolution. Over time the greens have built up with top dressing and they’ve probably gone upwards at least a foot in height.
“When Coore and Crenshaw did the renovation, they didn’t actually do any work to lower them back down because they were so distinctively raised and so tricky that they left them.
“The difficulty of the golf course is something that’s evolved over time.”
LONG GRASS
No.2 has rough, but it’s not the typically thick, lush, weedy goodbye-golf-ball, bluegrass that you find at Winged Foot or Oakmont, or any of the “classic” parkland U.S Open tests. Rather, No.2 sports Bermuda, which Aussies would be familiar with, according to Michel, because couch is a form of that.
“In the renovation, they put in a bunch of wiregrass and open sandy areas. So it’s still very penal off the tee if you miss, but probably not as much as lush, long, green rough is.
“What it does bring, though, is an element of randomness. You can hit it into a sandy waste area and have a pure lie and a line to the flag. Or you could be right under some wiregrass with no control over where it’s going to go.
“It’s probably not as ‘demanding’ off the tee as other U.S Open venues, but it can still penalise harshly if you miss.”
Michel says Payne Stewart (1999) and Michael Campbell (2005) won U.S Opens at “old Pinehurst”.
“It was lots of Bermuda grass rough. Lots of pine trees. Like The Australian before its renovation,” Michel says.
“Coore and Crenshaw basically went in and tried to restore it back to the original principles. Wider fairways. Drier roughs. Sprinklers in the middle of the fairways spraying outwards so it didn’t irrigate rough too much. Sustainability wise, it’s become a beacon of American golf.”
So many of the courses we see on the PGA Tour are over-watered and over-manicured so they look green for television. Augusta National is the model. It is a cookie-cutter approach, like people copying a successful franchise model – the first McDonald’s, the first Krispy Kreme.
You want a rap for No.2? In 2014, when Martin Kaymer won, Donald Trump said Pinehurst’s sandy waste and brown-tinged Bermuda was “a horrible look”. Trump is a convicted felon who cheats at golf and has lied about being club champion of scores of golf clubs, including his own.
RIGHT: Scottie Scheffler is the clear favourite to win at Pinehurst. PHOTO: Getty Images.
Better to heed the words of the 30-year-old Aussie and mentee of Mike Clayton: “In terms of golf course design and sustainability, Pinehurst is a role model for golf courses around the world. It’s sustainable into the future.”
HOW TO WIN
There doesn’t appear to be one “style” of player which No.2 might favour. While distance married with accuracy off the tee is handy wherever you are, Pinehurst’s fairways tend to pinch closer where the big dogs hit it. It will be one of the strategic sub-plots to see what club people take off the tee.
It is hard to see players with the driving ability of Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau not seeing more reward than risk. And why not, with their power and accuracy? The short par-4s – even the long-and-strong ones – get easier the closer you are to goal. And the risk could be worth it if the reward is a short wedge from short Bermuda – or an even shorter one from flat, sandy “waste”.
Michel reckons “with a good balance of shorter par-4, shorter par-5s, a lot of players will go for it”.
“There’s still a lot of penalty around the greens, but at the same time, there’s plenty of birdie chances if you get good approach shots. There are also some really strong par-4s – 500, 520 yards. There are a lot of par-4s where you’re just trying to get away with a par and move on. It has good variety. It will be exciting to watch,” Michel says.
In mild conditions, some could go low at Pinehurst, as they did at Los Angeles Country Club last year when Rickie Fowler and Xander Schauffele shot 62, the lowest rounds in U.S Open history. They are the equal-lowest in any major with Branden Grace’s 62 in the 2017 Open Championship at Royal Birkdale.
Pinehurst isn’t “protected” (one might argue stifled) by thick long grass. It is, however, protected by sandy waste and random wiregrass.
And green complexes like elephants’ graveyards.
TAMING THE HIMALAYAS
In 2014, Pinehurst No.2 hosted its third U.S Open, won by Martin Kaymer of Germany, who appeared to be playing a different course to everyone else when shooting 65-65-72-69 for nine-under. He would win by eight from Fowler and someone called Erik Compton, with Jason Day two back at the more U.S Open end-score of +1. Kaymer’s 271 remains the second-lowest U.S Open total after Rory McIlroy’s 268 at Congressional in 2011.
Today, Kaymer is in his last year of exemption and has a greater chance of winning Powerball, including the supplementary number, than he does of winning the U.S Open at Pinehurst No.2.
He did finish in a tie for 19th at LIV Singapore, before tying for 73rd at the PGA Championship. In his last start before returning to Pinehurst – LIV Houston – he had his best finish in years, T9. Although there are some signs of life, it would be a surprise if he featured in North Carolina this time around.
Yet we can draw something from Kaymer’s runaway win in ten years ago, according to our man Michel. “When he won, he was basically putting it from everywhere when he missed the green,” Michel says.
While one of Scottie Scheffler’s super powers is the best wedge game around the greens – and that will still be quite handy at No.2, as it is everywhere – Michel reckons the green surrounds could suit someone who doesn’t necessarily have the best wedge game.
Rather, if they can roll the rock from well off the green, can judge speed and pace up and over the humps and lumps, they could get up and down without needing super-delicate – call them “Scheffler-esque” – chip and pitch shots. Consider Collin Morikawa, a clean ball-striker in decent form. Might he attack flags confident that if the ball runs off he can just “two-putt” back up the hill should the ball roll off?
Michel reckons the greens will play faster than they might read on a Stimpmeter. “They’re going to be in that 11-12 range, but probably not crazy. With the amount of flow on some of the greens, they’re probably not going to be that quick. I think they play faster because of the tilt on a few of them,” Michel says.
“They [USGA] probably don’t want too much of that. They like a bit of carnage; they like them fairly fast. But I don’t think they’ll get crazy.”
Still, there’s a little bit about them. They are bad-ass greens. They will suit a bad-ass player.
Brooks Koepka is that player.
THE TIP
If we had a copy of a 2030 issue of Gray’s Sport Almanac from Back To The Future, it would, presumably, show Scottie Scheffler lifting the 2024 U.S Open Championship trophy at Pinehurst No.2. But time travel is yet to be invented and the big, bad Biff Tannen of world pro golf is five-time major champion Brooks Koepka. He can get better – or at least maintains a status quo, which in a U.S Open can be as good – while everyone else fights in the hurt locker.
Notable two-time champions of the U.S Open include Walter Hagen, Gene Sarazen, Lee Trevino, Ernie Els and Koepka. Were Koepka to win again, he would join Tiger Woods who won in 2000, 2002 and 2008, the last time with a bung knee and following a putt for the ages which got him into a play-off with Rocco Mediate.
Koepka has also won the U.S Open mini-me, the PGA Championship, three times, in 2018, 2019 and 2023 when he posted -9 to win by two from Scheffler and Viktor Hovland, with Bryson DeChambeau, Kurt Kitayama and Australia’s Cam Davis four shots further back.
In U.S Opens, a lot of players make good, even great pars. There are good bogies. Doubles, not so much. And triples, you want to avoid those. When it comes down to a grind of mental strength, when you need to muscle it out of a thick rye tuffet, that’s where Koepka, chippy and strong, can raise his game, powered by the knowledge that if he’s battling, then the college boys in their lettered cardigans are being waterboarded. These thoughts amuse him. They are his breakfast.
He might need to poison Scheffler’s scrambled eggs, however.
NOBODY’S FAVOURITE FAVE
Scottie Scheffler has the all-round golf game to suit Pinehurst No.2 for a U.S Open as he does everywhere, certainly in the United States. And, like Dustin Johnson before him, mentally it doesn’t appear there’s a lot going on. Nothing extraneous. Just the knowledge that his wins have been pre-ordained by Jesus.
The usual litany of suspects will line up to challenge Scheffler. Pick a top-10 LIV player or a top-25 OWGR one, and you can make a case why it’s their turn to sneak up the leaderboard to bite Scheffler’s ankle. Bryson DeChambeau, Max Homa, Lucas Aberg had their moments at Augusta. Xander Schauffele, he got the monkey off his back at Valhalla.
But they’re all chasing the preternatural ball-striking of Scheffler. The man’s owned golf in 2024, made the very hard look perfunctory. He is subjugating the game, killing contests. He is approaching Tiger Woods or Nelly Korda levels of dominance. And he’s so good and so free of charismas, he’s slaughtering golf as a spectacle, as spectacular as his iron-play is.
And you wonder: for such an apparently harmless, gormless, God-fearing, ‘nice’ American fellow cast from the same cookie-cutter of lanky, tall, all-American Gomer Pyle-style players as Matt Kuchar, Keegan Bradley, Tony Finau, and all the rest, has there been a U.S Open favourite death-ridden so hard by so many?
AUSSIES, AUSSIES, AUSSIES
David Graham won Australia’s first U.S Open in 1981, at Merion GC in Pennsylvania, closing with a brilliant 67. Geoff Ogilvy won Australia’s second U.S Open trophy in 2006 at Winged Foot, chipping in on the last and watching Colin Montgomerie and Phil Mickelson blunder their way up 18.
Since then, Jason Day has been our brightest light. He was second in 2011, eight shots behind Rory McIlroy. He was second again in 2013, two shots behind Justin Rose. He was T4 behind Martin Kaymer in 2014 and was co-leader after three rounds at Chambers Bay in 2015, when Jordan Spieth won and a young kid called Cameron Smith finished two off the pace with Adam Scott.
There are reasons for Aussie optimism in 2024. Last year Smith was fourth, four shots from Wyndham Clark, while Min Woo Lee was a shot back in T5. Smith, Lee and Cameron Davis had pretty decent showings in hugely testing conditions at Augusta National.
And this: if there is a course setup that most reflects the Melbourne Sandbelt, it’s Pinehurst No.2. Even aesthetically, with the exposed sand, the native grasses and trees. The run-offs and tight surrounds will give Smith opportunity to roll the rock, as he did with great effect on the 18th at St Andrews to win the 2022 Open Championship.
The weather in June in the Carolinas will likely be mid-30s and humid. Call it Sydney or Brisbane summer. Excellent playing conditions. If the rain stays away, No.2 can get fast and firm. And if it’s windy and warm, it could be as brutal as Augusta was. For good players, wind is the great leveller. Aussies know wind. Aussies know firm and fast.
Smith’s driver wasn’t an all-snapping snake in Adelaide; there were few signs of John Daly’s extended chicken-wing on the way back. Smith has been working on a move with coach Grant Field since he was rolled out of Royal Queensland in November’s Australian PGA. He wasn’t perfect in Adelaide, but he bombed plenty straight.
And on the par-4s, long or short, even without driver he could employ 250-yard 3-iron or hybrid, followed by a short iron, and do his (world’s) best with 15- and 20-foot putts on bulbous, whale-back greens.
OLD TIGER
As Adam Scott arranges his schedule around the majors, so too does Tiger Woods, though Woods’ body doesn’t allow him to practise much, much less play 72 holes of golf in lead-up competition. And as his two competitive rounds at Augusta National, and the two in which he shot 15-over, showed, the man remains a work in quite slow progress.
Is it over? They’re lining up to tell you it is. That his body has failed him and will continue to. Tiger, though, and one assumes he’s had advice from some of the great orthopaedic minds of our time, believes his body has the capacity to heal and that if he keeps working out, he’ll be match-fit eventually.
After the Masters, Woods said: “I’ll just keep lifting, keep the motor going, keep the body moving, keep getting stronger, keep progressing. Hopefully the practice sessions will keep getting longer.”
RIGHT: Is it over for Tiger? They are lining up to tell you it is. That his body has failed him and will continue to. PHOTO: Getty Images.
Pinehurst No.2 is nearly 7,000m long; let’s assume he has to walk 10km a day and do that four days in a row. As he showed at Augusta, it’s do-able, even if his golf likely won’t get better the further he walks.
And if he can’t practise much, and he can’t play tune-up tournaments, and Sundays mean hobbling out of bed, then you begin to wonder, despite all the glad tidings people are throwing his way, and his own super-positive mindset, what is the actual point?
OLD DAYS
The U.S Open tournament has been beating up the world’s best players for 124 years.
In 1978 at Cherry Hills, Seve Ballesteros was so dispirited post-round, he was in no mood for quips with reporters. Asked to talk the press pack through a four-putt, Ballesteros said: “I miss, I miss, I miss, I get.”
In 1980 at Baltusrol, Ballesteros shot 75 in round one. On the Friday morning, he was stuck in traffic, missed his tee-time and was disqualified. “It doesn’t matter,” he told media. “I couldn’t win here anyway. The rough is too severe.”
In 1979 at Inverness, Jack Nicklaus three-putted five times in his first seven holes on the Friday – and still made the cut, which was +9. Tom Watson couldn’t hit a fairway – and missed the cut. So did Ray Floyd, Johnny Miller, winner of that year’s U.S Masters, Fuzzy Zoeller, and winner of the first Australian Masters, Gene “The Machine” Littler.
It is 40 years now since the great scribe Dan Jenkins wrote of the 1984 U.S Open in Sports Illustrated: “The Great White Shark, Greg Norman, played the last three holes by way of his native Australia, but somehow made three pars at Winged Foot in New York and forced the 18-hole play-off.”
Zoeller, with whom Norman would spend the Monday, was in the group behind Norman. When the Shark hit his six-iron on 18 into the grandstand, chipped onto the green and holed a 45-foot par putt to share the lead, the American, waiting back on the 18th fairway, took a white towel from his bag and waved it around his head in jest.
There would be no surrender, of course. Zoeller made a tough par look easy, and after 72 holes of the U.S Open, Norman and he were tied on four-under, five ahead of Curtis Strange and a leaderboard featuring Miller, Jim Thorpe, Hale Irwin (who was in that final group but about to post 79), Peter Jacobsen, Mark O’Meara, Fred Couples and Lee Trevino.
The pair came back the next day for 18 holes. Norman three-putted three times in the first five holes and shot 75, while Zoeller made 67, cracking gags all the way, and won by eight shots.
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