A Path Less Travelled

This month sees not one but two US Opens taking place over a radically remodelled Pinehurst No 2. Paul Prendergast takes a look at the changes and examines the USGA’s new strategy when it comes to America’s national championships

Sand and scrub characterise the new-look No 2 course at Pinehurst

In terms of course set-up, ‘rough’ immediately springs to mind when discussing the US Open. As such, it’s easy to conjure up images of corridor-width fairways, callisthenic manoeuvres from the world’s best to advance the ball from the tall grass, and over-par scores on the leader boards. Even in recent times, which has seen the USGA add rather more elements of playability to proceedings, America’s national championship has been a battle of attrition.

But wait! If your memory extends to the past two US Opens to have been played at Pinehurst’s venerable No 2 course, in 1999 and 2005, you won’t believe the transformation that has occurred for this year’s edition.

In 1999, Payne Stewart holed an 18-footer on the final green for par to hold off Phil Mickelson to claim his second US Open by a single stroke. In drizzly final-round conditions, the victory was memorable in that the sartorially elegant Stewart decided to eschew fashion for practicality by tearing off the sleeves off his rain jacket. The image of Stewart, who would tragically lose his life just months later in a plane crash, celebrating the putt with a balletic fist-thrust, has appropriately since been captured in a statue by the clubhouse.

The revered Donald Ross-designed layout that Stewart, Mickelson and a 23-year-old Tiger Woods (who finished tied for third) faced that year was set up in typical USGA fashion: par-5s turned into lengthy par-4s and choking wall-to-wall Bermuda rough made even more unplayable by the wet conditions. A dearth of red numbers resulted, as players struggled to find the slivers of short grass and gulped in trepidation if anything strayed even marginally.

Michael Campbell’s unlikely triumph in 2005 was much the same. But what a difference a decade makes!

Not only has the course been remodelled by the illustrious pair of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, who is eloquently quoted as saying it was an honour to be entrusted with the opportunity to restore the layout to its early-day characteristics, but so too has the set-up philosophy of the USGA been transformed.

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