Trying To Make Sense Of Another Buzzkiller Of A Shinnecock Hills Day
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That whole history repeated itself thing happened at Shinnecock HIlls. Again.
Old fogies recall Jack Nicklaus coming off his epic 1986 Masters win at the same Shinnecock where lanky amateur Tiger Woods arrived on the scene nine years later. Nicklaus lost a ball on 10 and Woods hurt his wrist playing out of the native grasses, killing their chances at special weeks. And we won't revisit 2004 again.
Thursday’s bizarro opening round at the 2018 U.S. Open dropped another buzzkill-bomb when the world top ten averaged 75.2. Woods started out with an unforced error triple bogey and even the best player and day one co-leader, Dustin Johnson, only hit nine greens en route to a 69.
The top 10 amateurs were only 12 shots back of the top ten in the world. (For more strange stats from a strange day check out this post).
The field wracked up bogey after bogey in nearly historic fashion by modern day standards, and all without fertilizer in the rough:
Here’s the zany part: Shinnecock was put on full restraint mode by the USGA. Greens were slower, most hole locations were pretty safe—though Jordan Spieth felt a few hole locations were dicey and Bryson DeChambeau barked out something about clown golf.
The course had been watered to keep it from drying out on what turned out to be a windy day as forecast, though not quite as brutal as the worst case scenario suggested as a possibility.
Generally when the world’s best get course conditioning this sound, greens holding and those 41.6 yard wide fairways USGA traditionalists abhor, someone is still going to post a 67. Especially when the course is an architectural masterpiece where we elitists assume great play will be separated from the rest.
I floated a few other theories on a ShackHouse first round pop-up, including the brightness of the day and the exposed nature of the new-look Shinnecock making it tougher for players who love their tree-lined golf.
But this all overlooks one key and well-known theory: golf is a very strange sport. Goofy things happen no matter how many stats tell us to expect the expected.
