SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — The last time the U.S. Open rolled through these parts, in 2018, Zach Johnson uttered a line that became the stuff of golf Twitter lore: “They’ve lost the golf course.” Johnson was referring, melodramatically, to the USGA’s management of Shinnecock Hills’ greens, which by the end of a dry and windy Saturday were crispier than burnt pita.
Eight years later, the Open is back, and with a forecast that could make the previous edition look like, well … a breeze.
“Thursday, sustained winds throughout the day of 12 to 24,” John Bodenhamer, the USGA’s chief championships officer, said in a Wednesday press conference, rattling off the foreboding data like a meteorologist on the evening news. “More on the upper end of that with gusts from 24 to 36 miles an hour. When we start to talk about numbers in the mid-30s, that becomes problematic in a number of ways. Golf balls just staying still on the putting green.”
Some of the USGA’s models, Bodenhamer said, show Thursday winds blowing north of 40 miles per hour. (“We hope that doesn’t happen,” he said.) On Friday comes some relief — sort of — in the form of sustained winds of 8 to 16 mph with gusts in the mid to upper 20s. Saturday also should be gentler but with a three-hour window in the afternoon when the wind could gust back into the 30s. “Sunday calms down a little bit,” Bodenhamer said.
Battling the elements is, of course, central to golf’s challenge, but when those elements threaten to turn the playing arena into a scene from “Twister,” tournament officials need to take preventative actions. Bodenhamer said he and his team began to alter their setup plan last Friday, when the forecast took a turn for the worse — or, at least, the windier.
Among the shift in tactics: more liberally watering the course; slowing down the greens (taking them from an 11.5 or 12 on the Stimpmeter down to 10.5); and selecting hole locations, Bodenhamer said, that “will account for the wind but will also give us our best chance so we can just play in those types of winds.”
The USGA also has one other, less commonly employed, ace up its blazer sleeve: syringing.
The process sounds like something that might happen in an O.R. but is, in fact, just a fancy word for spritzing. Here’s how Michigan State’s Turfgrass Information Center defines it: “The spraying of turf with small amounts of water with the objective being to (i) dissipate accumulated energy and cool the leaves by evaporating free surface water, (ii) prevent or correct a leaf water deficit, particularly wilt, and (iii) remove dew, frost and/or exudates from the turf surface, usually in the post-dawn period.”
Bodenhamer put the process in more digestible terms: “Think about it as when you go into the grocery store and you go into the produce department and reach for that head of lettuce and that little mist comes on above and hits your hand. That’s all we’re doing to the putting greens. It doesn’t impact playability. It hydrates the leaf blade. When it evaporates, it keeps it cool enough so we don’t lose the friction on the putting greens.”
The Great Shinnecock Syringing of 2026 will occur between the morning and afternoon waves on Thursday and Friday. To allow time for the crew to do its thing, the USGA is starting play in the first two rounds at 6:35 a.m., which is 10 minutes earlier than the first group typically goes off at the U.S. Open.
If all goes to plan, Bodenhamer said, the USGA will deliver “a more consistent playing presentation to both the morning and afternoon waves both days. It will be consistent across both days, which we think enhances competitive fairness.”
Bodenhamer added that syringing on Thursday and Friday will keep the leaf blades healthier for the weekend — and presumably also keep at bay any more accusations of losing the course.
