{"id":697164,"date":"2026-06-11T06:02:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T06:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/697164\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T06:02:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T06:02:14","slug":"update-shinnecock-hills-miles-russell-ryder-cup-captains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/697164\/","title":{"rendered":"Update: Shinnecock Hills, Miles Russell, Ryder Cup Captains"},"content":{"rendered":"

No graphic this week. We\u2019ll be back next week with U.S. Open contenders. Instead, I wanted to briefly touch on three news items that caught my attention, with an eye toward the 2026 U.S. Open<\/a> at Shinnecock Hills.<\/p>\n

1. Appearing on Golf Channel during Golf\u2019s Longest Day coverage, USGA Managing Director of Rules and Open Championships Jeff Hall mentioned that next week\u2019s U.S. Open will be the first played at Shinnecock with the fairway widths William Flynn<\/a> intended. Prior to the 2018 U.S. Open, Coore & Crenshaw<\/a> restored the fairway widths to align with Flynn\u2019s vision, but the USGA opted to narrow them for that championship. This year, the organization has decided against doing so, and the fairways will play at member width.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is the right decision, and an enlightened one. The USGA has mutilated golf courses by restricting playing corridors far too often in the past, leaving bunkers stranded in rough and covering land that should be short grass with thick strips of rough, as has been the case at Pebble Beach<\/a>. Those decisions have been rational, even if misguided. The USGA wanted to place a premium on accuracy and protect par. Too much width, even if it reflected the golf course\u2019s design, was viewed as giving players too much margin for error.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the USGA isn\u2019t narrowing the golf course this time around. Fairways will bleed into hazards \u2014 the way golf should be. We shouldn\u2019t need to change the DNA of a championship golf course for the one week professional golfers descend upon it. For those concerned that a wider Shinnecock won\u2019t provide a stern enough test, I wouldn\u2019t worry about that. If the wind blows, Shinnecock is going to be all the best golfers in the world can handle, just like if the fairways were nominally narrower.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Beyond next week, I hope this decision signals a broader philosophical shift at the USGA. Let golf courses play to the dimensions they were designed. If a course can\u2019t adequately challenge the best players in the world without artificially rearranging the hazards, perhaps it shouldn\u2019t host a U.S. Open. Or maybe there is a deeper issue that explains why it is so difficult to test modern professionals that should be addressed. And I think we all know what that issue is!\u00a0<\/p>\n

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2. I wrote about this<\/a> more extensively on Monday evening, but I remain blown away by Miles Russell. Making it through U.S. Open Final Qualifying despite making a double-bogey and a triple-bogey isn\u2019t just incredible mental resilience; it\u2019s the sign of a player who is flat out much better than most of the field. And he is only 17 years old.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

It probably comes across as overreactive that I\u2019ve been writing about how both Jackson Koivun<\/a> and Miles Russell are two of the best prospects in a long time, but it is true. Blades Brown is obviously quite a talent as well. Getting to watch at least two of the three \u2014 Russell and Koivun, Brown is an alternate \u2014 in action next week at Shinnecock will be a treat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

3. This didn\u2019t generate as much buzz on social media as I would have thought, but Jim Owczarski of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported<\/a> that Steve Stricker, captain of the successful 2021 U.S. Ryder Cup team, \u201cnever had any conversation with the PGA of America\u201d regarding the 2027 captaincy. \u201cI probably would have welcomed it to try to do it again,\u201d Stricker went on to say.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I am cautiously optimistic about Jim Furyk\u2019s upcoming captaincy, but I don\u2019t understand why Steve Stricker isn\u2019t a bigger part of the fold. There\u2019s a good case to be made has has been the best U.S. Ryder Cup captain of the last 10 years. He was humble, made intelligent decisions, and captained the American side to a blowout win at Whistling Straits. Yes, there was a big talent disparity between the teams, but that shouldn\u2019t diminish the success of Stricker\u2019s captaincy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I hope we see Stricker captain the Americans again someday. Assuming he wants the job, which he appears to, I can\u2019t think of anybody more deserving. <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No graphic this week. We\u2019ll be back next week with U.S. Open contenders. Instead, I wanted to briefly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697165,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-697164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}