It’s time for the annual four days of torture for the top professional golfers in the world, also known as the U.S. Open, takes place.
And perhaps there is no course more suited for dishing out punishment than the site of this year’s tournament -Shinnecock Hills.
This is the sixth time the Open has been held at Southhampton, New York course and it’s the only course to host at U.S. Open in three different centuries.
The first was held in 1896, a tournament where the winner – James Foulis – brought home $156 for first.
After that it’s been a brutal test of golf. The course sites out in the open and if the wind blows – which it always seems to be blowing and blowing hard – scoring under par for the tournament is hard to do.
In fact, in the four Open’s held since 1986, only three players have finished the tournament under par.
Here are the last four years, the winning scores, and notes.
2018: Brooks Koepka won his second straight U.S. Open with a winning score of 1-over par. The moment most defining moment of the tournament came when Phil Mickleson’s frustration with the greens finally boiled over on the 13th hole when after striking a putt, it appeared to be heading off the green, so Mickelson reached out and hit the ball again when it was still rolling.
Of the 446 official rounds recorded at the 2018 U.S. Open, none were bogey free. The last bogey-free rounds recorded at Shinnecock during a U.S. Open occurred in the second round in 2004 (Phil Mickelson, Fred Funk and Daniel Chopra). Since then, there have been 578 scorecards submitted and every one of them included at least one bogey or worse.
2004: Retief Goosen was your winner with a score of 4-under, with Mickelson at 2-under the only other golfer under par for the event. The players were so upset with the greens that the USGA took to watering the greens between groups, which ultimately led to some lower scores.
1995: Corey Pavin was the winner at even-par for the tournament, icing the win with a 4-wood to the final green that is remembered as one of the greatest 72nd hole approach in the history of the Open. Two other memorable notes from this event were that this was first Open for Tiger Woods as he debuted as a 19-year-old. Woods withdrew during the second round with a wrist injury. Also, sixth-place finisher Neal Lancaster fired a 29 over the final nine holes, being the first player to shoot under 30 on the Sunday of an Open.
1986: Raymond Floyd won the tournament with a 1-under par, the only player to finish under par for the tournament. Floyd shot a final round 66 to win by two shots over Chip Beck and Lanny Wadkins. At the time, it made Floyd the oldest player win a US Open, a mark that was broken in 1990 when Hale Irwin won at 45 year, 15 days.
By Dennis Miller