Ping Pong in Pinehurst

The 13th hole of No. 2 course dealt some third-round U.S. Open pain

In less than an hour late Saturday afternoon during the third round of the 124^th U.S. Open, Tony Finau and Ludvig Aberg each must have felt as if unripened cones, green and hard from a tall longleaf, had conked them on the head.

The blows were swift. The blows hurt. The blows left a mark.

But the blows weren’t that surprising, given how steep the slope and how short the grass at the crime scene, the potent combo that has come to define Pinehurst No. 2 course in the 21^st century.

What happened in quick succession on the par-4 13^th—first to Finau, then to Aberg—was like giving a college student a blue book at finals time and asking him or her to have at it, to make a case for or against the design and the conditions that precipitated costly triple-bogeys by both contenders for the national championship.

The ping pong Finau and Aberg played on the 368-yard hole, which plays uphill on the short approach, is the kind of thing that often happens to recreational golfers when they take on No. 2. They laugh about it because what else can they do? Such folly has become part of the deal, and, for many, there is pride in the punishment, of having gotten “Rossed,” as it is sometimes called, although it is by no means a certainty that Donald Ross would applaud the evolution.

Did he like a stiff challenge? Unquestionably. Would the star architect, who died in 1948, when the greens and their surrounds on his pet course were much different than what competitors are facing this week, approve of the 2024 version? That is unknowable. But as a respected biographer of Ross, Bradley Klein, told me of No. 2’s greens a couple of years ago: “The turtle-back shapes they acquired came long after Ross was dead … They [have] become acquired traits, but they are not Ross’ intent, and they certainly are not characteristic of Ross greens anywhere else.”

Finau and Aberg were loitering near the top of the leaderboard Saturday when they came undone on what was, for them, a very unlucky No. 13. If you like the current version of No. 2, their wrecks might have seemed delicious disasters. If you are in the opposite camp, they could have been exclamation points against the extremes now presented.

To be sure, the 13^th hole wasn’t unplayable Saturday. With the hole located in a very difficult position, just nine yards on and four yards from the right edge, guarded by false front that sunk its teeth into Finau and Aberg, it was the 11^th most difficult hole of the third round. Birdies (14) outnumbered bogeys (13), and it played to a 4.200 average despite two doubles and four triples (including those suffered by the two contenders).

Finau, four under and three back of leader Bryson DeChambeau at the time, came up short on his approach, tried to putt it the 39 yards up the slope on his third and watched his ball roll into a rear bunker. From there it was back down the slope in front of the green, on in five shots and two putts for a 7. Aberg, trailing DeChambeau by only two, essentially did the same thing, except he pitched instead of putted his failed third shot long and into the sand. The shot tracks for each golfer from the third shot on looked like a toddler had been messing with an Etch A Sketch.

Finau: “That green is pretty crazy right there where that pin is. Just the wrong time to miss a shot. I was looking right at the flag, pulled it a little, came all the way down. From there, I decided to hit a putt from 20 yards off the green. Didn't have a very good lie. Didn't really want to pitch it. Ended up playing Ping Pong there.”

Aberg: “Obviously what happened to me on 13 is not ideal. It doesn't necessarily change the way that you try to approach this golf course. I think there's only a certain way you can play it. If you don't play that way, you're going to get punished.”

DeChambeau had a much happier tale to talk about No. 13. After a lousy iron lay-up off the tee, he drew a good lie in the sand, 149 yards from the flagstick. He hit a beauty, perhaps his finest shot of the day, within 6½ feet of the cup. DeChambeau missed the putt, but compared to the toll on Finau and Aberg, it was an 18-karat 4. The same went for Rory McIlroy’s save of a 4 there.

Going into the final round, DeChambeau, after a 67, leads at seven under, with McIlroy, Matthieu Pavon and Patrick Cantlay at four under. Aberg trails by five, Finau by six and will need a stellar Sunday to have a chance.

“Just a really difficult U.S. Open Saturday,” McIlroy said, “I think everything we expected it to be. The course is getting crispy. Some of the pin positions are pretty tricky. Felt like a lot of them were on little crowns … I love the test that Pinehurst is presenting, and you've got to focus and concentrate on every single shot out there. It's what a U.S. Open should be like.”

If McIlroy can overtake DeChambeau Sunday and win another U.S. Open to go with his 2011 victory at Congressional, it will have been, according to someone with a good calculator, 4,746 days between those wins. That would be a wider gap than the current biggest spread between U.S. Open victories, by Julius Boros between his 1952 and 1963 titles, back when he represented Mid Pines Club, not far down the road from Pinehurst No. 2.

No matter who the champion turns out to be late on Sunday evening, he most likely will not have played any Ping Pong on his way to the trophy ceremony.

Comments are enabled for all subscribers. I’d be curious to hear everyone’s thoughts on Pinehurst No. 2’s greens and their surrounds.