Pinehurst’s lightning-fast domed greens, already seen by some as “borderline” unfair, will bring peril for every golfer when the 124th US Open begins tonight (AEST).
The famed 7,543-yard sandhills tract offers plenty of sandy waste area and wiregrass — dirt and weeds — for wayward shots but the pressure doesn’t subside when the ball reaches the putting surface.
The US Golf Association (USGA) wants the toughest test in golf and this week’s setup, with a hefty 13 on the stimpmeter that measures green speed, will fit the bill.
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“We’ve putted off a lot of greens,” 15-time major winner Tiger Woods said. “It depends how severe the USGA wants to make this and how close they want to get us up to those sides.
“When Donald (Ross) did this golf course and made the greens this severe, I don’t think he intended it to be running at 13 on the stimpmeter.”
Defending champion Wyndham Clark said on Monday the greens “are extremely fast. They already are borderline.” Norway’s Viktor Hovland, fifth in the world rankings, worries pin placements could have players struggling to avoid rolling off greens or well past holes again and again.
“I miss it maybe a foot low side, with just a hair too much speed, the ball is off the green,” he said. “Some of those pins are a little bit close to the dropoffs.
“I don’t really know where they’re going to end up putting the pins, but if they were, in my opinion, borderline when the greens were soft, what if it starts blowing up a little bit and the greens just keep getting firmer and faster? It’ll be just interesting to see.”
World number one Scottie Scheffler doesn’t expect dubious USGA pin placements.
“It’s extremely challenging,” he said. “I don’t really think they have to do too much to trick it up with the way the greens are if they want the scores to be high.”
“A lot of it is going to be missing in the right spots but there are certain holes out here that there isn’t a ‘great miss’ — you’ve just got to step up there and hit a great shot.”
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John Bodenhamer, the USGA chief championships officer who tries pushing greens to the limit but never over, likes what he sees.
“Our strategy is built around tough but fair, but these are difficult greens, no bones about it,” he said.
“We’ll play in the (stimpmeter) mid-13s for most of the day. That’ll drop down as the day goes on… but we think with the hole locations we choose, if the weather cooperates, we think that’s a good place to be, along with everything else that’s here with Pinehurst.
“We’re going to be tough but fair. The players know that. I think they want that. I think that they want to win something special.”
They don’t, however, want to be embarassed doing it. That can happen if the greens go over the top, which has happened before. And Pinehurst is hard to start with.
Among 468 players in three prior US Opens at Pinehurst, only four broke par for 72 holes and just one, 2014 winner Martin Kaymer of Germany, finished better than one-under, running off to an eight-stroke triumph on nine-under.
“It’s a brutally hard golf course,” 2012 US Open winner Webb Simpson said. “It’s very long and there’s no letup. You have to be incredibly disciplined. You have to accept 30-footers all day.”
Kaymer never chipped in his victory, putting his way around trouble from off the green.
“You chip five balls, you’re probably going to chunk one of them,” Simpson said. Hovland says putting isn’t always the safe play either.
“There are certain slopes that are so steep, because it’s so hard into the grain, if you’re just off by a little bit, you’re going to look like a fool,” Hovland said.
Six Australians will contend the year’s third major with Jason Day, Cameron Smith and Min Woo Lee heading a contingent that – the like the rest of the field — will try to find a way to stop Scheffler’s incredible dominance.
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US OPEN ROUND ONE TEE TIMES (all times AEST)
* first group named at starting time to begin on Hole 1, second group to begin on Hole 10
8:45pm Thursday: Michael McGowan, Carter Jenkins, Logan McAllister
8:45pm: Rico Hoey, Tom McKibbin, Matteo Manassero
8:56pm: Frederik Kjettrup, Chris Petefish, Parker Bell
8:56pm: Dean Burmester, Rikuya Hoshino, Seamus Power
9:07pm: Omar Morales, Max Greyserman, Casey Jarvis
9:07pm: S.H. Kim, Justin Lower, Tim Widing
9:18pm: Corey Conners, Stephan Jaeger, Emiliano Grillo
9:18pm: Lucas Glover, Sam Burns, Cam Smith (AUS)
9:29pm: Ryo Ishikawa, Francesco Molinari, Sergio Garcia
9:29pm: Will Zalatoris, Matt Fitzpatrick, Tiger Woods
9:40pm: Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Brooks Koepka
9:40pm: Patrick Cantlay, Matt Kuchar, Russell Henley
9:51pm: Rickie Fowler, Adam Hadwin, Phil Mickelson
9:51pm: Tony Finau, Ludvig Aberg, Dustin Johnson
10:02pm: Min Woo Lee (AUS), Sahith Theegala, Nicolai Hojgaard
10:02pm: Justin Rose, Gary Woodland, Webb Simpson
10:13pm: Si Woo Kim, Matthieu Pavon, Sungjae Im
10:13pm: Daniel Berger, Ryan Fox, David Puig
10:24pm: Nico Echavarria, Robert Rock, Neal Shipley
10:24pm: Byeong Hun An, Sam Bennett, Edoardo Molinari
10:35pm: Takumi Kanaya, Stewart Hagestad, Mac Meissner
10:35pm: Austin Eckroat, Adrian Meronk, Cam Davis (AUS)
10:46pm: Isaiah Salinda, Bryan Kim, Jim Herman
10:46pm: Aaron Rai, Davis Thompson, Zac Blair
10:57pm: Carson Schaake, Charlie Reiter, Colin Prater
10:57pm: Willie Mack III, Richard Mansell, Ashton McCulloch
2:30am Friday: Jason Scrivener (AUS), Brandon Robinson Thompson, Brendan Valdes
2:30am: Greyson Sigg, Grant Forrest, Wells Williams
2:41am: Santiago De la Fuente, Sam Bairstow, Eugenio Chacarra
2:41am: Chesson Hadley, Mark Hubbard, Adam Svensson
2:52am: Kurt Kitayama, Taylor Moore, Christiaan Bezuidenhout
2:52am: Beau Hossler, Victor Perez, Adam Schenk
3:03am: Jason Day (AUS), Harris English, Tom Kim
3:03am: Robert MacIntyre, Nick Taylor, Mackenzie Hughes
3:14am: Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele, Scottie Scheffler
3:14am: Tyrrell Hatton, Tommy Fleetwood, Tom Hoge
3:25am: Brian Harman, Nick Dunlap, Wyndham Clark
3:25am: Bryson DeChambeau, Viktor Hovland, Max Homa
3:36am: Hideki Matsuyama, Jordan Spieth
3:36am: Sepp Straka, Peter Malnati, J.T. Poston
3:47am: Shane Lowry, Keegan Bradley, Martin Kaymer
3:47am: Gordon Sargent, Jake Knapp, Cameron Young
3:58am: Akshay Bhatia, Eric Cole, Erik van Rooyen
3:58am: Chris Kirk, Billy Horschel, Adam Scott (AUS)
4:09am: Brendon Todd, Taylor Pendrith, Alex Noren
4:09am: Ben Kohles, Denny McCarthy, Benjamin James
4:20am: Thomas Detry, Brian Campbell, Jackson Buchanan
4:20am: Frankie Capan III, Andrew Svoboda, Luke Clanton
4:31am: Taisei Shimuzu, Gunnar Broin, Maxwell Moldovan
4:31am: Harry Higgs, Hiroshi Tai, Brandon Wu
4:42am: Sung Kang, Riki Kawamoto, John Chin
4:42am: Joey Vrzich, Chris Naegel, Otto Black
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