Seventh heaven? Not at Shinnecock
SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. -- Everything you learned about the formation of continents will make sense the moment you set foot on the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club this week. The zip code may be American, but in a previous life, this windswept course must have been on the part of Scotland that broke off and headed west.
From the tall grasses framing the fairways to the simple lack of trees, Shinnecock is an ideal site for the British Open. Pardon the 104th U.S. Open, which begins Thursday morning, if it suffers an identity crisis.
The look and feel of the course is distinctly British, at least until you step to the concession stands. Fish and chips, no. Turkey sandwiches, yes.
"I think they have ice here," said Ernie Els, searching for something un-British about Shinnecock. "They serve us ice here."
With nature's ceiling fans stuck on high speed, and a recent lack of rain, the 6,996-yard, par-70 Shinnecock is running as hot as a '78 Jaguar. The greens are measuring above 12 on the Stimpmeter, and the fairways look like well-mown Corian.
"If it did rain, I think it will be like a highway. I think it will run off," said Tom Meeks, the senior director of rules and competitions for the United States Golf Association. "A little more rain would not hurt us."
The fairways, 32 yards wide during the 1995 U.S. Open, have been narrowed to 27 yards, largely because of their firmness, according to Tim Moraghan, the USGA director of championships agronomy. Yet the width of the fairways has nothing to do with the most interesting hole at Shinnecock this week -- No. 7, which may be the first 189-yard par-4 in Open history.
Oh, if you want to be technical about it, the seventh is a par-3. The design is a Redan, which, judging by the contour of the green, is Irish for "bobsled run." Redan holes were so named after a peculiarly shaped Russian fortification in the Crimean War, according to the official program.
Redan greens slope from front right to back left, although when you're standing on the left edge of the seventh green staring up at the pin, "slope" is too gentle of a connotation. A sliding board slopes downward, too.
"It's almost impossible to keep a tee shot on the green," Meeks said. When the guy in charge of setting up the course says that without regret, it's noteworthy.
"I didn't design the green," Meeks said, "and we're not going to rebuild it."
It is what it is. Over the course of an hour Wednesday morning, 13 golfers hit 18 tee shots to No. 7. Six stopped on the green. Seven more landed on it and rolled off. The USGA, because of the success of its setup at Pinehurst in 1999, shaved the collars around the greens at Shinnecock as well. There are collection areas, at No. 7 and elsewhere. One of Tim Petrovic's tee shots at the seventh came up short of the putting surface. He pitched to the pin in the middle of the green, and as the ball trickled within three feet of the cup, the fans in the stands behind the green applauded.
The ball kept trickling. As it finally stopped, 15 feet down the slope, Petrovic held his arms wide, palms up, as if to say, "What have I got to do?"
| “ |  I think that the percentage of players that hit the green in regulation will be less than 20 percent and with that being the case, if you play it two over for the four rounds, I think that would be a pretty good score. There's really just no place to hit it there. ” |
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| — Phil Mickelson |
"Oh for five," Petrovic said, referring to how often he has hit this green, as he walked to the eighth tee. "Three yesterday, two today."
"If you hit 17 greens, you'll get 100 percent in greens in regulation," Sergio Garcia said, "because it's almost impossible to hit that green."
"I think that the percentage of players that hit the green in regulation will be less than 20 percent," Phil Mickelson said, "and with that being the case, if you play it two over for the four rounds, I think that would be a pretty good score. There's really just no place to hit it there."
The players aren't complaining. To a man, they have praised the way that Shinnecock is set up, which stems from a decision made jointly by the club and the USGA in the late 1990s to remove trees and underbrush from the grounds. The club owned photographs taken of the course in 1931, as well as the maps that William S. Flynn used when he redesigned the course at that time.
"The old pictures show that there were very few trees," course superintendent Mark Michaud said. He estimated that his crew removed "six or seven thousand" trees, as well as underbrush, and replaced it all with fescue and the native bluestem grasses.
"We were able to go through and really clean up the golf course," Michaud said. "Let the air through it."
Flagsticks are bending and flags are flapping. The shaved collars around the greens will put a premium on the short game and the imagination it requires to master it.
"This is very much like a British Open," Tiger Woods said. "You can actually putt from 30, 40 yards off the green if you so choose. That's certainly not the case at any other Open venue we play."
In each of the previous two Opens played here, two stars emerged - the champions (Raymond Floyd in 1986, Corey Pavin in 1995) and Shinnecock Hills itself. There's no reason to believe that will change this week. The top 48 players in the World Golf Ranking are here. The only thing missing from this championship is the Claret Jug.
Ivan Maisel is a senior writer for ESPN.com. You can reach him at ivan.maisel@espn3.com.
