It is in the bloodthirsty nature of many golf fans to enjoy watching professionals struggle, and Pinehurst is delivering difficulty in a “tough but fair” fashion.
Errant drives are punished with awkward lies in sandy waste and wiregrass, and the firm, unforgiving greens punish approaches that aren’t played with precision. It is the greens and their contours that have caused the most carnage.
Carnage is often associated with US Opens, but things have gone too far before. The tournaments of 2004 and 2018 at Shinnecock Hills brought the greens under furious fire and then there was the ‘broccoli’ of Chambers Bay in 2015. The watchful eye of golf fans, pundits and players is always fixed on the putting surfaces in June.
If you type in ‘US Open’ or ‘USGA’ paired with the word ‘watering’ in the search bar on X (formerly Twitter), you’ll find some dissent against watering greens at Pinehurst. While social media is a world full of cynicism, maintaining course conditions at the US Open is a debate as old as time, and older than the internet.
Darin Bevard, the Senior Director of Championship Agronomy for the United States Golf Association, said to NCG that the USGA endeavours not to water greens during rounds and between groups playing so that conditions aren’t altered for oncoming groups.
NCG understands that there has been no watering of greens during competition rounds at the third major of the year, and this is the plan for what is left of the tournament.
Bevard added that turf health would override this principle if the long-term health of the greens were in jeopardy. The USGA maintains high specificity of moisture levels and green health is one variable the staff in North Carolina dealt with this week which “comes first,” according to Bevard.
