Getty Image / Keyur Khamar/PGA TOUR
One thing is for certain: this year’s 124th U.S. Open at Pinehurst #2 in North Carolina is going to be a very memorable tournament for everyone in golf.
Experts are predicting the winning score at this year’s U.S. Open will be somewhere in the range of -1 to -4 and after seeing viral videos of the Pinehurst greens it’s easy to see why low scoring will be so hard to come by. Balls literally dropped on the green are running 40 yards off the green and into waste bunkers.
And it’s not just one green either, there are two videos floating around showing how comically fast the Pinehurst greens are ahead of the U.S. Open. If golfers are even 5 yards off of their landing spots on some holes they are going to be scrambling to save their tournament lives.
This video from Preserved Links is wild. The ball just keeps rolling, and rolling, and rolling until it’s gone:
We often debate speed, how fast is too fast? The US Open sets the bar every year. Hit the wrong spot of the green at Pinehurst Number 2 and end up in the waste area 40+ yards away with the hardest shot in golf. Bring on the carnage! pic.twitter.com/4wDbRyUOZN
— Preserved Links (@preservedlinks) June 11, 2024
And TaylorMade Golf shared this video of what happens when you come up just short on the par-5 5th green where players will be looking to go low:
The par-5 fifth green at Pinehurst is WILD. 👀
Here’s what happens to approaches that come up *just* short after missing the green left. #TeamTaylorMade pic.twitter.com/Y3NpgPw7BB
— TaylorMade Golf (@TaylorMadeGolf) June 11, 2024
Tiger Woods has predicted there will be golfers playing “ping pong” from side to side of greens as balls race off them. Wyndham Clark called the greens “borderline” meaning they are teetering on the edge of ‘illegal’ in the golf world as being far too fast. And Viktor Hovland said “multiple spots where I miss it a foot low with a hair too much speed… it doesn’t just roll off the green, sometimes it rolls off the green and into the bush.”
The Pinehurst greens are going to be out for blood. For those wondering which golfers putt best on fast greens, here is a chart I came across on X.