The 118th edition of the United States Open Golf Championship tees it up Thursday on Long Island at the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club. The course will play to a par of 70 and can be stretched out to 7,445 yards. Brooks Koepka, a member of the 20-something brigade that currently rules the world of professional golf, is the defending champion, having run away with the title last year at Erin Hills outside Milwaukee.
Because of its immediate proximity to the Atlantic Ocean, Shinnecock Hills is a links-style course that can dramatically change from day to day based on the changes of the winds. While it has historically played firm and fast, it can be softened should the links becomes saturated by June rains. The game’s greats may be playing a different course each and every day.
One of the top-ranked classic courses in the annals of American golf, Shinnecock is one of our country’s oldest golf courses. In fact it may be the oldest continuously operated golf club. The land for the golf course was purchased from the Shinnecock Tribe in 1891 for the price of $2,500. An original membership of 44 men of wealth plunked down $100 each to cover the land purchase and the design of a 12-hole golf course. Willie Dunn, the architect of the Royal Montreal Golf Club, put together the original configuration. Scotland’s Willie Davis added six more holes in 1894. The iconic clubhouse was designed by Stanford White (The Arc at Washington Heights, Madison Square Garden) in 1892 and is a part of the National Registry of Historic Places. As an aside, Shinnecock Hills has included female members since the day of its opening in 1891. The members of the Shinnecock Tribe built the golf course.
Shinnecock Hills was one of the original five clubs to form the United States Golf Association in 1895. In 1896 it hosted the second annual U.S. Open and the U.S. Amateur, a 36-hole pair of national championships that were contested simultaneously in those earliest days of competitive golf. Built in the era of hickory shafts and the gutta percha golf ball, the course played to a length of 5,000 yards. Professional James Foulis won the Open while H.J. Whigham captured the Amateur. Jack Shippen, a black golfer, was in the Open field that year.
In 1901 the highly regarded duo of C.B. Macdonald (National Golf Links, Yale) and Seth Raynor (Monterey Peninsula, Camargo) re-did the original 18-hole course and also added a women’s nine-hole course to the facility. In 1937, the club hired William Flynn (Merion, Cherry Hills). Flynn kept the original opening five holes but created an entirely new 13 holes from the land that included the rest of the course as well as the women’s nine-holer. The brand new Shinnecock Hills was a beast of a golf course that now stretched out to 6,740 yards in the new era of the steel-shafted golf club.
Because of its remote locale, Shinnecock was off golf’s radar for the first three-quarters of the 20th century. It returned to prominence in 1977 when it hosted the Walker Cup, the game’s premier amateur team event. More familiar with links golf, the Great Britain and Ireland team soundly thrashed the American squad by a 16-8 margin.
Some 90 years after hosting the second U.S. Open, Shinnecock was once again the site of the game’s most grueling major championship. Veteran Raymond Floyd prevailed over a congested final-nine leader board to defeat Chip Beck and Lanny Wadkins by two strokes to win the ’86 Open for his fourth and final major title. He came in at 1-under-par 279.
Nine years later the diminutive Corey Pavin captured his sole grand slam victory by winning the 1995 U.S. Open at Shinnecock. Pavin hit a brilliant 4-wood into the final green to guarantee his two-stroke victory over Greg Norman. Pavin’s 72-hole score was an even-par 280.
By 2004, Shinnecock had been lengthened to 6,996 yards. While South African Retief Goosen defeated Phil Mickelson to win his second National Open title, the 2004 version of the Open is best remembered for the USGA’s hatchet job of setting up the course. The USGA let the golf course completely dry out and the greens were totally stressed out and barely alive. Putting on the seventh green took on a miniature golf flavor as long putts drifted into the greenside bunker. After watching the group in front of him struggle on the green, Mickelson intentionally hit his tee shot into the sand and then got up and down for par. Not exactly what C.B. Macdonald had ever imagined 100 years prior.
One assumes that the USGA has learned from the chaos of the ’04 Open this time around, but keep in mind that the blueblood elites who run the USGA only recently botched the National Open at Oakmont two years ago with the Dustin Johnson controversy. The United States Golf Association has shown the inability to run our biggest national championship on several occasions during the past 20 years.
Yet against that background, 156 exempt and qualifying golfers will be in the field for the 2018 U.S. Open when it commences next Thursday. If past history tells us anything, it’s that Shinnecock Hills doesn’t favor any one style of golf based on its past tournaments.
The 20-somethings led by PGA champion Justin Thomas, Masters winner Patrick Reed, former U.S. Open champ Rory McIlroy, and reigning British Open titlist Jordan Spieth have to be strongly considered. Bomber Dustin Johnson, a former Open champ, also has the game to prevail at Shinnecock. Yet the links-style nature of the course puts more of a premium on accuracy over power. Veterans such as Zach Johnson and Matt Kuchar could find their way to the top of the leader board as well. Yet for those of you who yearn for a story of redemption, there’s always the return of Tiger Woods to consider or the magic of a career grand slam for Phil Mickelson. Then again, it’s truly difficult to envision that either Tiger or Phil can win in a world of Jon Rahm, Daniel Berger, Tony Finau and the others.
We will know a whole lot more come a week from Sunday at Shinnecock Hills. While watching the National Open this coming week, take into account the beauty of a course that was first built during the beginning days of golf in America. Perhaps it’s the Wrigley Field of great golf.
