SOUTHAMPTON, NY – Was that a … water bottle? A water bottle thrown 30 feet in the air from the middle of the 10th fairway? One of those silver, aluminum water bottles the USGA gives out at the US Open?
Yes, a water bottle was flying through the air, and several times with it, because the corpse of Xander Schauffele was watching Shinnecock Hills‘ par-4 10th hole. Why was he using a flying water bottle, you ask? You can read along about this and four other early observations from the US Open below.
Caddy Cooperation
Actually, Austin Kaiser was just trying to communicate with his fellow looper, Joe Greinerwhich again stood on the 10th tee, about 240 yards away. The 10th hole is unlike any other at Shinnecock, where large rolling mounds give way to a massive fairway drop that descends into a fairway hole. Adam Scott said he’s unique, having a wedge, and maybe he feels intimidated about it.
The purpose? Hit your ball into that hole with short grass, creating a small, smooth wedge. The problem? Part of that freeway goes right into the rough. Schauffele’s hybrid ended up there Monday morning. On the left side, the rough cuts along a bank and drives balls into a brutal bunker. They saw Chris Gotterup hit the 5-wood that way, leaving the speed slot. Therefore, the water bottle was thrown into the air. Kaiser was standing on the 10th fairway, well out of sight of the fairway, but he was on the phone with Greiner, who was standing on the tee with a range. Kaiser tossed the water bottle up several times, up the hill where Greiner could see it and set the true, correct line for the center of the hidden part of the fairway, exactly where they wanted to land their balls. Whatever it takes to get the job done — that’s what the caddies were doing Monday afternoon at the US Open.
Xander’s dark thoughts on Tuesday morning? “That’s just Austin acting like he’s doing business.”
Will Monday matter?
We’re only a day and a half into US Open week, and you’ve probably already consumed some wind content. Maybe even some created by GOLF.com (embedded below). But that’s okay – it was windy on Monday, it just made an already brutally difficult course that much more impossible.
But was that smell … deceiving? The early discussion among the corps and some players was that the northwesterly wind that swept the course Monday afternoon is an abnormal summer breeze. And while it would be nice to see the bewildering course in its entirety — especially for players who arrived late from Canada — it may not make sense to play the course in a wind you won’t see during the tournament. Viktor Hovland chose to just walk the front nine with a putter and two wedges, practicing chip shots around each green. Jordan Spieth birdied 1, 2 and 3 before hanging up to complete just one 6-hole afternoon round on 7, 8 and 9.
Tuesday’s wind was roughly 90 degrees different on the compass, and Wednesday’s wind almost 180 degrees different from Monday. In other words, the guessing game is IN when it comes to analyzing sight lines off the tee. (Hence Kaiser’s job with Greiner.) And Thursday’s first round is expected to have winds north of 30 mph. It’s early, but the breeze is on everyone’s mind.
“Like Pinehurst”
The US Open will go to many places in the next 20 years, but it’s in the midst of perhaps the most perfect 4-year rotation of proper Open sites: Pinehurst (’24), Oakmont (’25), Shinnecock and Pebble beach (’27). Can it get any better than that?
What I adore so much about that stretch is how different each of those American classics can be. They’re all tough in the summer heat, but Pinehurst has turtle greens and its fairways drop into unpredictable wastelands. Oakmont has its sticky, calf-length greens and lightning-fast greens. Pebble has the ocean, the morning mist, the constant wind and those little greens. And Shinnecock? There’s a little bit of all of that.
Many of its greens are crowned and include much smaller fairways and fairways, a la Pinehurst. I caught Billy Horschel making that comparison during his practice round with William Mouw on Monday afternoon. The fairways are much wider than Oakmont’s, but a lot of trouble lurks if you miss there, and especially if you miss in obviously wrong spots (like on the bad side of the bunkers, where the fescue has been allowed to grow rampant. See: Left Side of 1). Greens, like Oakmont, will grow As soon as possible until thursday. And then comes the wind from the ocean. In short, Shinnecock has it all.
“All 15 clubs”
USGA executives have shared a new phrase in recent years. USGA head of championships John Bodenhamer seems to like it better. USGA tests should have you using all 15 clubs – 14 in your bag and the one between your ears. You’ll hear Bodenhamer and/or CEO Mike Whan say those exact words sometime this week. But you can see it most clearly in the way players handle their wedges.
A tour equipment representative explained to GOLF.com how many golfers on the course are opting for low-bounce wedges to properly snap balls off Shinnecock’s tight, firm turf and most weeks as a professional golfer, that the 60-degree wedge can be used just about anywhere else. But at Shinnecock, some players are choosing to use 56-degree wedges from bunkers more often. And the reason? Sand is different.
Because of the amount of wind Long Island gets, the sand is coarser than the pros might have seen in, say, Pittsburgh during last year’s Open. Shinnecock needs a little more rock and shell in the bunkers than you’d find at Riviera, where the Women’s Festival took place earlier this month. Otherwise, the constant breeze would blow it out of the traps and they would refill the bunkers every few months. All this means is that getting a predictable result for some requires a little more noise and a little less loft. It’s the little things.
How aggressive do you want to be?
They say a US Open is an exercise in patience. In biting back aggressiveness and hanging around. The problem with that aggressiveness, of course, is on full display at Shinnecock. Look no further than Alejandro Tosti’s visit to the 7th green on Monday.
The 7th green is infamous. It had to be watered in the middle of the last opening, just to slow it down – and maybe keep it alive. But from the back of that green, where Alejandro Tosti’s ultra-aggressive approach was set on Monday afternoon, we saw why you don’t go for the flag shot.
From about 30 yards out, Tosti hit the same chip 10 times, trying to find the sweet spot of the landing zone. It was not visible. If his ball landed on the green, it was rolling 20 yards away. If his curling ball landed a yard short of the fairway, it would stay just short of the green. If he landed it perfectly a foot short of the green, he would have enough pace to curl near the hole. Of those 10 attempts, three came close and the rest would require a par-save. That’s why the middle green can be a happy place at Shinnecock.
“>
