ULTIMATE GUIDE: ‘Carnage’ tipped as US Open returns to Pinehurst No.2
Charges dropped against world number one golfer Scottie Scheffler
It’s been 19 years since Tiger Woods finished second in the 2005 US Open at Pinehurst No.2. It was the last time he was at the course.
It’s not the same course as it was back then, and it’s not the same Tiger Woods, either.
Woods has never gone this long without seeing a major championship course he had played before. He arrived a week ago to get reacquainted with a course that has gone through an extensive restoration.
While the US Open returned to Pinehurst No.2 in 2014, Woods wasn’t there. He’d just undergone the first of five back surgeries.
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Tiger Woods during a practice round at Pinehurst ahead of this weekend’s US Open. Getty
Pinehurst was already a difficult course, even for the world’s best. That hasn’t changed.
But what has is almost literally everything else. More on that later.
“This golf course is going to test every single aspect of your game, especially mentally,” Woods said this week.
“Just the mental discipline that it takes to play this particular golf course. It’s going to take a lot.”
Pinehurst No.2 is already hard enough, but a forecast for high temperatures and no rain threaten lightning fast greens that could destroy a wayward putt.
Woods is playing in his first US Open since 2020 at Winged Foot, where he missed the cut.
He has practiced. He has chipped and putted. Woods just doesn’t play very much, courtesy of a 48-year-old body wracked by injuries — five back surgeries, four knee surgeries, and those were before his February 2021 car crash in Los Angeles that shattered his right leg and ankle.
This will be only his 10th tournament since that accident, and it’s the first time since 2020 that he has played three straight majors. It’s a matter of needing more repetition, and more competition, but not having a body that allows for that.
What to expect this week?
“I feel like I have the strength to be able to do it,” he said. “It’s just a matter of doing it.”
Woods played a practice round on Wednesday morning (AEST) with Max Homa and Aussie Min Woo Lee.
His 15-year-old son Charlie was along for the ride. More than just a spectator, Woods said Charlie knows his game as well as anyone and can serve as an extra set of eyes.
“I trust him with my swing and my game. He’s seen it more than anybody else in the world. He’s seen me hit more golf balls than anyone,” Woods said.
“He gave me a couple little side bits today, which was great, because I get so entrenched in hitting certain putts to certain pins, I tend to forget some of the things I’m working on.”
The course is renowned for its incredibly difficult greens, referred to as turtleback because many are domed in the middle and slope towards the edges.
When the course was restored ahead of the 2014 US Open, rough was replaced by native sandy areas and hundreds of native plants, the most treacherous being wire brush that dots the landscape.
Tiger Woods played a practice round with Min Woo Lee and Max Homa. Getty
A more subtle change for this year is the greens going from bent grass to a strain of Bermuda grass, which could make the turtleback surfaces even tougher in severe heat expected on the weekend.
“Nothing can simulate what we have here this particular week, the amount of little shots and the knobs and runoffs, and either using wedges or long irons or woods around the greens or even putter,” Woods said.
“There’s so many different shots that you really can’t simulate unless you get on the property. That’s one of the reasons I came up here last Tuesday, to be able to try and do that. Quite a bit of work. The golf course has firmed up and gotten faster since then.”
The US Open is also the final event before the men’s rankings are taken for qualification for the Paris Olympics.
A general view of Pinehurst No.2, which will host the US Open this week. Getty
Where is the US Open being played?
The 2024 US Open is being held at the Pinehurst No.2 course, the most famous of the 10 courses at the Pinehurst Golf Resort in the US State of North Carolina.
This is the fourth time Pinehurst No.2 has held the US Open, having previously done so in 1999, 2005 and 2014. It is scheduled to do so again in 2029, 2035, 2041, and 2047.
Phil Mickelson and Matt Kuchar are the only players in the field who competed at Pinehurst in 1999, 2005 and 2014.
Who is the defending US Open champion?
Wyndham Clark won his first major when he closed with an even-par 70 and held off Rory McIlroy to win by one shot at Los Angeles Country Club last year. Scottie Scheffler finished third.