A demanding stretch
of holes on the
inward half will test
the shotmaking skills
and nerve of players.
Masters champion
Bubba Watson will need
all of his shot-shaping
prowess to succeed at
Pinehurst.
PINEHURST AND THOMPSON: JOHN MUMMERT/USGA PHOTO ARCHIVES; MICKELSON: DAVID CANNON/GETTY IMAGES; WATSON: EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/GETTY IMAGES;
KO: ROBERT PREZIOSO/GETTY IMAGES; ROSE: DARREN CARROLL/USGA PHOTO ARCHIVES
Phil Mickelson is
hoping his short
game creativity will
be an asset on a
course that requires
a variety of shots
around the greens.
tinkered with for years to perfect from
his home adjacent to the third green,
needed to “go backwards to go forward.”
Through archival aerial photography and
source material, Coore and Crenshaw
painstakingly set out to reveal the Ross
character that had been masked. The real
revelation was marking the 75-year-old
irrigation lines that showed the original
sweep and flow of the holes.
They removed 700 sprinkler heads that had
been added through the years to maintain the
rough that the USGA felt was necessary for
the course to stand up to the test of the U.S.
Open. What’s left is a course that’s 50 percent
wider as far as fairways (and 350 yards longer,
if desired) but with all manner of challenges
for drives that reach t