Everyone who told you the greens at Pinehurst No. 2 were going to be brutal wasn’t lying.
We saw that in the first round of the 2024 U.S. Open on Thursday, with some golf balls that looked pretty good … until the hard, fast greens chewed them up and spit them out.
That happened to Collin Morikawa on the par-3 ninth hole, playing 186 yards in the first round. He hit out of a greenside bunker and watched as his ball didn’t bite at all.
Instead it rolled. And rolled. And rolled … all the way off the green.
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Here’s Morikawa’s shot that rolled forever.
"That's gone. That is absolutely gone."
Be careful where you miss around and on the greens at Pinehurst No. 2. pic.twitter.com/m0Uz1uxmMN
— U.S. Open (@usopengolf) June 13, 2024
After his round, he was asked if he was surprised that that happened.
“No. A lot of the bunkers, they’re very different. Some have a lot of sand, like the one on 17 had a lot of sand, the one on nine had less sand. I wasn’t surprised. I hit a bad shot,” he said. “I flew it halfway and I was trying to barely land it on the green are. But that’s just where any other circumstance you feel comfortable if you did fly it that far. This is one of those courses where you literally take your medicine, and if you have eight feet for par, you have eight feet for par, versus making double and I’m 30 yards away from the hole.”
He was 55 feet from the hole in the bunker but 77 feet away after his ball finally came to a stop. A two-putt from there gave him a double-bogey 5 on the hole.
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