SOUTHAMPTON, NY – Last time US Open walked through these parts, in 2018, Zach Johnson uttered a line that became the stuff of golf lore on Twitter: “They’ve lost the golf course.” Johnson was referring, melodramatically, to USGA management Shinnecock Hillsgreens, which at the end of a dry and windy Saturday were fresher than burnt pita.
Eight years later, the Open is back, and with a forecast that could make the previous edition seem like a breeze.
“Thursday, steady winds all day from 12 to 24,” John Bodenhamer, the USGA’s head of championships, said at a news conference Wednesday, rattling off the hunch like a weatherman on the evening news. “More on the upper end of that with 24 to 36 mph winds. When we start talking about numbers in the mid-30s, it becomes problematic in a number of ways. Golf balls just sit flat on the green.”
Some of the USGA models, Bodenhamer said, show Thursday’s winds blowing to the north 40 miles per hour. (“We hope that doesn’t happen,” he said.) Relief — of sorts — comes Friday in the form of sustained winds of 8 to 16 mph with gusts in the mid to upper 20s. Saturday should also be milder, but with a three-hour window in the afternoon when the wind could gust back into the 30s. “Sunday calms down a little bit,” Bodenhamer said.
Battling the elements is, of course, essential to the challenge of golf, but when those elements threaten to turn the playing field into a scene from “Twister,” tournament officials must take preventive action. Bodenhamer said he and his team began changing their setup plan last Friday when the forecast took a turn for the worse — or, at least, windier.
Among the change in tactics: more liberal watering of the course; slowing down the greens (taking them from an 11.5 or 12 to Stimometer up to 10.5); and selecting hole locations, Bodenhamer said, “that will account for the wind, but also give us our best chance to be able to play in those types of winds.”
The USGA also has another, less frequently used, ace up its sleeve: the syringe.
The process sounds like something that might happen in an OR, but it’s actually just a fancy word for spraying. Here’s how the Michigan State Turfgrass Information Center defines it: “The spraying of turf with small amounts of water in order to (i) dissipate stored energy and cool the leaves by evaporating free surface water, (ii) prevent or correct leaf water deficits, especially wilting, and (iii) usually leave the surface and remove dew. The post-dawn period.”
Bodenhamer puts the process in more digestible terms: “Think of it like when you go into the grocery store and you go to the produce department and you grab that head of lettuce and that little mist comes up and hits your hand. That’s all we’re doing to putting greens. It doesn’t affect playability. It hydrates the putt, so it keeps the putt from steaming enough. The friction on putting greens doesn’t.”
The 2026 Great Shinnecock Splash will occur between the morning and afternoon tides on Thursday and Friday. To allow time for the crew to do their thing, the USGA is starting play in the first two rounds at 6:35 a.m., which is 10 minutes earlier than the first group usually starts at the US Open.
If all goes according to plan, Bodenhamer said, the USGA will provide “a more consistent presentation of the game in both the morning and afternoon waves both days. It will be consistent across both days, which we think increases competitive fairness.”
Bodenhamer added that spraying on Thursday and Friday will keep the leaves healthier for the weekend — and presumably also keep quiet any other accusations of losing course.
