Whether you think Shinnecock Hills Golf Club is the perfect links course (reigning Open champion Scottie Scheffler this is not the case), shares at least one thing in common with Scotland’s great ocean liners: high sea winds.
And for the 2026 US Open, ferocious winds are predicted to wreak havoc on play. The outlook for Thursday’s opening round is grim, with fears simmering that the wind could cause the USGA to “lose the golf course,” as it was said at the 2018 US Open at Shinnecock Hills.
Here’s what you need to know.
Scheffler explains why strong winds are a major problem at the Shinnecock US Open
As Scheffler explained in his pre-tournament press conference Tuesday at Shinnecock, real links courses often feature strong wind as a primary defense, but face a challenge with slow, flat greens.
“[Shinnecock Hills] it might look like a links course. I don’t think it plays like one. “Links golf is really fun in the sense that once you put the ball on the green, a lot of the greens are flat and slow compared to these plants, just because you have so much stuff,” Scheffler explained Tuesday.
Scheffler continued that while links courses can be “easily easy” when you get to the putting area, at Shinnecock “you can be in the middle of the green and be like, ‘wow, I don’t know how I’m going to two-putt from here.’ I think it might look like links golf but it doesn’t play like it.”
More importantly for our purposes here, Scheffler said that because of Shinnecock’s quickness and downhill putting, “you still have to hit the ball high to catch the green.”
That will be a big problem for the best players in the world when they meet on Thursday, because it is expected pump.
The US Open weather forecast calls for strong winds on Thursday
According to Windy.app, when the first teams begin Round 1 at 6:35 a.m. ET Thursday, they will face sustained winds of 20 mph with gusts all the way up to 36 mph.
For any mortal golfer, that level of wind is already too much to hope for a good round, even on a course with no treacherous greens.
But it is nothing compared to the players they will face during the day.
At 11 a.m., the forecast calls for winds of 31 mph, with hurricane-force gusts of 52 mph. Vision does not improve much during the day. When the finalists finish their rounds Thursday evening, they will be battling winds of up to 30 mph.
Windy.app
The wind is predicted to give US Open competitors a break on Friday and Saturday, but only in relation to Thursday. On Friday, winds will be in the low twenties with highs in the 20s. On Saturday, winds will again increase to the 20-mph range, with gusts entering the 30s.
As for Sunday, when the final pairings are against the closing Shinnecock, they will do so in the face of 20-mph.
;)
Windy.app
The forecast of brutal winds for the 126th US Open could turn into a big headache for the players, although Scheffler is not afraid.
“It looks like it’s going to be a windy week. I think the golf course is going to play well,” said the World No. 1.
One thing is for sure: the high winds will provide a lot of entertainment for us viewers at home.
