Collin Morikawa, Ludvig Aberg & Others Show Very Early How Brutal Pinehurst No. 2’s US Open Will Be This Week

Matt Fitzgerald·
CULTURESPORTS
·
Colin Mowriwika
@usopengolf

The U.S. Open is a major championship where pars are at a premium, and hanging on for dear life is sometimes all you can do. It takes a special kind of mental fortitude to hang tough at venues designed to give the world’s best golfers the most extreme tests they face all year.

Talk about needing to stay locked in. Every single shot and every single corner of Pinehurst No. 2, disaster lurks. Look no further than even one of the top contenders so far, Ludvig Aberg. With an excellent round going, the 24-year-old phenom hit his tee shot just short of the par-3 sixth green, his 15th hole of Thursday’s opening round. A relatively straightforward pitch and run all of a sudden turned into a most awkward stance.

Thankfully for Aberg, he managed to get up and down from there with a nervy putt for bogey from about eight feet. To be fair, Aberg is making his U.S. Open debut — and what a start he’s had with quality shots like these:

Got a 10-1 ticket on Aberg to win. Pray for me. Or for Scottie Scheffler to get arrested again since that’s all that seems to be stopping him these days.

Once again, though, the slightest lapse in concentration or execution can turn into a big number in a hurry. Collin Morikawa found that out the hard way with a somewhat short-sided bunker shot early in his round. The ball just kept rolling on him, and wound up totally off the green to the other side.

That was one of two double bogies Morikawa made on par 3s because of how severe Pinehurst’s table-top contoured greens are. However, the two-time major champ who’s seeking the third leg of the career Grand Slam this week hung tough, totally redeemed himself for that bunker mishap with a hole-out on the 17th, and curled in a sick birdie at the last to salvage an even-par round of 70.

You can see by the usually even-keeled Morikawa’s reactions to those two birdies how huge they were. it’s still so early in the tournament, but at a U.S. Open, you can shoot yourself out of it with a couple big numbers early on. Although he trails clubhouse leader Patrick Cantlay by five strokes, there’s no telling how difficult the conditions may get. There’s not a raindrop in sight on the forecast for Pinehurst, North Carolina, with temperatures due to reach the low 90s in each of the next three days.

What does that mean? Even faster fairways, greens, and more cartoonish carnage around the course as the weekend unfolds and the intensity of competition ramps up.

A little earlier in the morning wave, two-time PGA Tour winner Sungjae Im and former Italian prodigy Matteo Manassero further illustrated how small the margin for error is at Pinehurst:

Thought this was notable from Johnson Wagner, who predicted that only three players will still be under par by the time the champion is decided on Sunday:

Cantlay has set the standard, yet he’s never sealed the deal on a major before, so there’s a fat chance he’ll remain at Wagner’s projected winning score — much less go lower. Pinehurst may need to water the greens, move up tees, or give the players more kind pins to fire at. Otherwise, we’re in real danger of the U.S. Open getting a little out of hand.

A beer bottle on a dock

MORE FROM WHISKEY RIFF

WHISKEY RIFF RAFF PODCAST

WHISKEY RIFF SHOP

NEWSLETTER

ABOUT US

THE TEAM

STAY ENTERTAINED

A RIFF ON WHAT COUNTRY IS REALLY ABOUT

A beer bottle on a dock