The madness has arrived to the 126th U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills.
The USGA sent out a memo to players Friday night letting them know to expect more difficult conditions this weekend than they endured the first two days.
Firmer greens, bumped up from 10.5 to 11 on the Stimpmeter are greeting the 72 players who made the cut. So, too, are wind gusts over 35 mph on Saturday — even higher than anticipated.
Dylan Wu, who parred his 36th hole to make the cut, went out in Round 3 and promptly five-putted the par-4 first for a quadruple-bogey 8. “Live From the U.S. Open” showed Chris Gotterup’s ball on the first hole rolling away from its marked position. It took Gotterup nearly a minute to get settled to hit a 3-foot putt (which he made).
USGA CEO Mike Whan joined “Live From” Saturday morning and said, “This is by far the windiest morning that I’ve walked out, and I’ve been here a long time.
“We gotta get through today, one more really tough wind day. Listen, I know everybody wants it as tough as you can make it. At the same time, we want to play golf. We don’t want to get to a point where we can’t play golf because balls won’t stay on the green. It will definitely be firmer, it will definitely be a little bit bouncier than it’s been. But I think we are going to have to pay for that into Sunday to kinda get through today. As we can feel right now, this is pretty significant.”
