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Justin Thomas leads the way at five under, but Tiger Woods is eight behind after the first round.
Will the United States Golf Association be tempted to a brutal course setup after some great first-round scores at Winged Foot? Nick Dougherty doubts it and insists that the course will be hard enough without interference …
After seeing five minors leading the way after the first round at Winged Foot, will we see another backlash from the USGA with the setup of the field for the remainder of the US Open? They have anticipated brutal montages, which have sometimes gone wrong, but I don’t think they will this week.
It’s what many of us would expect them to do, given their history, but I think Winged Foot will naturally get progressively more difficult for the rest of the US Open.
It is highly unlikely that Thomas will match his starting 65 for the rest of the week.
They should seek to keep the field in roughly the same condition for the first two rounds so that there is no danger of complaints from being on the wrong side of the frame.
Justin Thomas shot 65 and that’s a great score on a very difficult golf course, whatever the setting. But the greens will get stronger over the weekend, and at least that’s something the USGA can control, regardless of any change in weather conditions.
The rough was reduced to four inches from five before play started, but it is still thick enough to cause real problems, particularly when the greens become less responsive.
Tiger Woods rated Winged Foot as possibly the hardest course of the great golfers
Tiger Woods was one of many players who said earlier this week that Winged Foot is not only one of his three most difficult courses in major golf, it is also a design that needs no modification to make it a severe scrutiny.
The likes of Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson have said the same thing in the past, that there is no need for him to be “cheated”, and the winning US Open scores at this venue are testament to that.
In five previous US Open at Winged Foot, the only winning score below par was in 1984, when Fuzzy Zoeller beat Greg Norman in a playoff after the two completed 72 holes at four under par.
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There are no tricks, there are no shortcuts, and overall it’s difficult, but fair. You know you have to hit the fairways, you know how severe the slopes are on the greens, you know where you can and where you can’t miss.
The likelihood of Justin Thomas scoring like this for four days is slim. And when you have a tough day here, the course will take a big chunk out of you.
It will all come down to how you move, how well you hold and hold, and that’s what you want from a US Open event.
USGA chief Mike Davis will want to avoid a repeat of what happened on the third day at Shinnecock Hills in 2018.
The score is irrelevant to me, but that’s probably not the case at the USGA. They, and the members of Winged Foot, would hate to see a winning score of around 12 or 14 below par, and that’s highly unlikely to happen.
It’s well known that pair has always been the target of winning scoring at a US Open, and I’m pretty sure it won’t be far behind on Sunday night.
The set-up on Saturday is critical, and that’s the day they could push it, but a lot depends on what happens in the second round. The USGA received a lot of criticism after the notorious third round at Shinnecock Hills a couple of years ago, and they are surely eager to prevent that from happening again.
Wingedfoot will naturally get more difficult over the next three days.
If seven under leads at the middle, then Saturday is likely to be a bit iffy. The problem with trying to tie in the leaders is the impact on some of the guys who are not playing that well, so you could see some really big numbers.
The forecast is for stronger breezes and cooler temperatures over the weekend, so the USGA will have to take that into account as well.
The other danger is social media. All it takes is for one player to be critical of the setup and all of a sudden people are jumping on the bandwagon and the USGA is getting criticized for this, that and everything.
The difficult setup at Olympia Fields resulted in a play-off between the two best players in the world
Yes, they have made mistakes in the past, but you should expect a US Open event to be bordering on unfair at times. But guess that? Golf is unfair! It wasn’t meant to be a fair sport.
But when there’s a player complaint that comes to light, it can turn into a great story, as was the case on Saturday at Shinnecock. For me, the best setups will see the best players in the world competing down the stretch.
That’s not always the case, obviously, and we’ve seen a few times that a world number 40 can suddenly find something and play as a world number one in a given week.
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If we see a replay of Olympia Fields last month, when it was down to a play-off between the top two players in the world rankings, then it doesn’t matter if someone didn’t like the test or if they considered it unfair in some way.
You want the best players to go head-to-head in the final stretch of a major championship. That’s what Major League Baseball is all about, and I hope that’s the case at Winged Foot on Sunday.
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