Pinehurst No. 2: U.S. Open beauty or beast?

People will forever remember Bryson DeChambeau's 72nd-hole bunker shot as clutch, but will it overshadow an otherwise brutal setup writes Gary Van Sickle.

Savor the irony.

Pinehurst No. 2 spent most of last week’s U.S. Open delivering a mega-load of bad breaks to players with its troublesome wire-grass rough and diabolical Donald Ross greens that were dialed up to repel all intruders levels.

There were plenty of examples, but Tony Finau and Ludvig Aberg making triple bogeys in Saturday’s third round because they couldn’t get a pitch or a bunker shot to stay on the green were among the most egregious. And there was the instance when Rory McIlroy’s ball rolled back off the green, down a slope and into semi-hole in a sandy area, from where all he could do was chunk it into a bunker. It was capricious stuff.

But Pinehurst The Punisher got the week’s best break. That happened when Bryson DeChambeau hit a 55-yard bunker shot to within 4 feet on the final green and holed the par putt to win the Open. It was a thrilling finish and a shot for the ages.

Bryson DeChambeau watches his approach shot from the bunker on the 18th hole of Sunday’s final round at the U.S. Open. | Photo: Fran Caffrey / Golffile

So instead of remembering the pot-luck nature of the lies in the rough or the good approach shots and chips that still found ways to embarrassingly slide off the greens, we’ll remember DeChambeau’s remarkable sand save — The Shot of this 2024 U.S. Open. Unless you’re a Nattering Nabob of Negativism and want to focus on Rory McIlroy’s missed short putt at 18, which set up DeChambeau’s par for the win.

By Sunday night, Pinehurst No. 2 got mostly great reviews from the self-appointed experts, in large part thanks to the scintillating finish. I guess they liked the drama of all those shots and putts that forced commentators to dramatically ask, “Is that going to stay on the green?” And often, the ball didn’t.

Former PGA Tour star Mark Calcavecchia, the 1989 British Open champ, offered a sharp opinion on X, the artist formerly known as Twitter. Wrote Calc: “Pinehurst is such a cool area with great courses. #2 ain’t one of them. Most overrated course in the world.”

That predictably started a storm of conversation. Asked why it was overrated, Calc answered, “Greens. No OB. No water and almost impossible to hit a tree. Pot luck if you miss fairways.”

Fact-check: Well, Aberg did hit a ball out of bounds but yeah, it took a Herculean miss to do that.

A reader tweeted that he had similarly negative feelings about Torrey Pines. Calc: “Me, too. It’s awful.”

I’m not sure I’d rate the whole course awful. But the phony, artificial pond in front of the 18th green is awful. It is totally out of place. The course is on a bluff overlooking the Pacific. And it’s in California, the home of droughts. You may as well stick an igloo there, it would be just as realistic.

Another follower told Calcavecchia he said the same thing — overrated — about Royal Troon. That’s where Calc won his Open. Calc’s response: LOL.

This debate could go on at length. One responder said No. 2 has “the best green complexes in the world, nothing comes close. No waterfalls. Just pure golf. Need precision to score.”

Calc’s mic-drop: “Yeah, if they were about a 7 on the Stimp. Not 14.”

I am on Calc’s side of the fence on this. If the greens were just a little slower and stickier, No. 2 would have showed its design genius. But the USGA setup was a throwback to defending par, which is often a way not to identify the best player.

The two best players were identified despite the setup and one of them, DeChambeau, wallpapered over this misstep with his heroic stroke at the end. All is well that ends well, supposedly, but let’s hope the USGA took some notes and gets it right when the Open returns to Pinehurst in 2029.

THE SHORT GAME

The glare of the U.S. Open caused most of us to miss an interesting piece of news. Angel Cabrera, recently released from prison, won the Paul Lawrie Match Play title in England last week. He beat James Kingston in a Legends Tour event — the European version of PGA Tour Champions. Cabrera is 54 and has a visa. Will the Masters invite him back next April? … Two TV moments stood out from the Open. One was Friday when Francesco Molinari came to the ninth hole, his last hole, and anchor Mike Tirico said Molinari was “going to miss the cut.” Then Brad Faxon finished the sentence by adding, “Unless he pulls a Sepp Straka.” Straka had aced the hole earlier and, incredibly Molinari played a brilliant shot and made a hole-in-one, too, and was believed to be the only player in history to make the cut thanks to an ace. Faxon, if you have any stock picks, call me. … The other moment was post-Open when Golf Channel’s Johnson Wagner tried to recreate DeChambeau’s 55-yard sand shot. His first try sailed well over the green. Then DeChambeau burst onto the set, got in the bunker with Wagner and urged him to try again. Wagner stiffed the next shot, leaving he and DeChambeau amazed. It was definitely the highlight of “Live From the Open.” … The fans who cheered “U-S-A! U-S-A!” after McIlroy’s missed putt were way out of line and should be sent to golf prison. … I like Smiley Kaufman’s personality and his hit-and-giggle schtick with players but that bit doesn’t belong at a major championship. Save it for Phoenix and the John Deere Classic. … It didn’t seem as if amateur Neil Shipley, an Ohio State University player from the Pittsburgh area, got enough credit for winning Low Amateur honors. He did the same at the Masters, where he was paired with Tiger Woods in the final round. He is one of nine players to win both honors in the same year, a group that includes Jack Nicklaus and Phil Mickelson — but not Woods. He is also the first to be Low Am while having an Arby’s curly fries clubhead cover in his bag. And, presumably, he’s also “got the meats.”

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