Published
Jun 03, 2026 at 02:58 PM EDT
The third major championship of the season, the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills in New York, is scheduled to take place from June 18-21.
With the tournament quickly approaching, several golfers have already made the trip to the famed course to play a practice round and get a feel for the layout.
Among them was world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, who came away impressed by the difficulty of the course. Scheffler offered an honest assessment — and a warning to the rest of the field — about the challenge presented by Shinnecock Hills’ rough and notoriously difficult greens.
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“I actually came up and played on Monday. Left Dallas Monday morning, went up and played 18, and then came over here Monday night,” Scheffler said.
“I hadn’t been there prior. That was my first time on property. It was kind of what I expected. I had heard some rumors about how difficult the greens were. I was a little surprised at the width of the fairways, but the green complexes there are extremely difficult, and I think that’s where the greatest challenge comes from.
“The rough, also, was a really good penalty, I think, for the width. Once you start missing fairways out there, you have no chance. But the fairways are generous enough to where it provides you some opportunity. It’s just that the green complexes are extraordinarily difficult, and they can put the pins wherever they want and make the scores as high as they could possibly want them to be.”
Scheffler has never competed at Shinnecock Hills in a PGA Tour event, making this a unique challenge as he pursues the one major championship missing from his resume. A victory at the U.S. Open would complete the career Grand Slam and make him just the seventh golfer in history to win all four major championships.
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