PINEHURST, N.C.
The humble Texas Wedge gets no love. Reaching for the putter from off the putting surface is often considered an effort of last resort for weekend hackers who can’t muster much muscle control to hit a proper chip or pitch. Just surrender to your inadequacies and grab that flat stick, so the stigma goes.
That all changes at this week’s U.S. Open. The Donald Ross-designed Pinehurst No. 2 is no ordinary Open test, and many of the shots and decisions required will be entirely different than those typically employed by tour professionals. The layout is ranked by Golfweek’s Best as the No. 1 public-access course in North Carolina, the No. 3 resort course in the U.S. and the No. 18 Classic course in the U.S.
It’s all decidedly old school – thinner grass on the perimeters of the fairways, bad lies in unpampered sand, a little dirt in the socks and no weak-kneed emphasis on equitable outcomes. May the most deserving player win.
Wayward pros might find their next shot sitting pretty atop a clear patch of sand. Or in a footprint. Or plugged at the base of an ill-willed plant. Is it fair? That’s not the point, and this week’s winner will be one of the few to withstand that kind of fair-not-fair mindset.
Players need not worry about the randomness of bad lies and wiregrass away the fairways if they keep their shots on short grass, of which there is plenty. This will be an Open of survival. Of finding a way, regardless of convention. Of swallowing pride to ensure no worse than a bogey.
The return to a classic ethos was the focus of the restoration by Coore, who fell in love with No. 2 while still a boy. But by the end of the second U.S. Open at No. 2 in 1999, much of the Ross had been replaced. Acres of manicured grass had appeared, and increasingly precious water was blasted all about the property to keep it green.
Coore and Crenshaw wanted to put the Ross back into property. That meant sandy expanses straddling dry and bouncy fairways, with more natural bunker shapes and balls rolling endlessly across firm, tight turf. Work crews removed 40 acres of grass and reduced the number of sprinkler heads on the course from 1,200 to 450, following the still-buried original irrigation pipes as a guide.
The USGA that year embraced the slogan “Brown is beautiful,” even if not every player, onsite spectator or TV viewer agreed. It all made for one of the most memorable Opens in recent history. Martin Kaymer plays from a sandy waste area on No. 14 at the 2014 U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2 in North Carolina.
