Unlike at Mohegan Sun, seven means craps at Shinnecock.
It looks quite routine, a 189-yard par 3, slightly downhill to a rising green. Then the balls start landing.
And rolling off.
Almost every one.
If they don’t go in the hole, they don’t hold the putting surface that slopes to the back left. That was where the pin was yesterday, but isn’t likely to return this week.
“In my book, that’s going to be the hardest hole on the golf course,” Vijay Singh said yesterday, prepping for today’s start of the U.S. Open.
“Even a perfect shot won’t get you in the right spot there,” Singh said. “I’d be very happy to make two, three pars there and a bogey. I mean, if I make four pars there, I’ll be really tickled about it.”
Two scruffy Shinnecock bunkers, surrounded by knee-high weeds, guard the right side of the green.
Two more bunkers front the left side. The collar is cut close, but the rough surrounding the green is dense. Chipping will be mandatory, and difficult.
They call the hole “Redan,” from the Russian fortifications at Sebastopol. It plays impregnably, too.
“If you can hit that green four days in a row, hats off to you,” Tiger Woods said. Adding to the difficulty,
the Shinnecock crew clearcut a stand of trees behind the green and a privet hedge behind the tee, opening it up to more wind. Grandstands have been erected behind the tee and green that will minimize that effect, but not enough to help.
“It’s just not going to happen,” Ernie Els said. “I don’t think there’s another hole out here that will play anywhere near as tough as seven,” Phil Mickelson said. “The percentage of players that hit the green in regulation will be less than 20 percent.
“If you play it 2-over for the four rounds, I think that would be a pretty good score. There’s really just no place to hit it there.”
Except in the hole. Unlikely as that is, an ace will matter more here even more than usual, as many others will be carding 4s.
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Redan; 189-yard Par 3