By Doug Ferguson, Associated Press
This is not the same Pinehurst No. 2 that Tiger Woods saw 19 years ago when he walked away with a runner-up finish in the U.S. Open, his last time on the property.
It’s not the same Tiger Woods, either.
Woods has never gone this long without seeing a major championship course he had played before. He showed up a week ago for his first look, and was back last weekend to get reacquainted with a course that has gone through an extensive restoration first on display in the 2014 U.S. Open. Woods missed that one recovering from the first of four back surgeries.
What hasn’t changed is the nature of the U.S. Open.
“This golf course is going to test every single aspect of your game, especially mentally, and just the mental discipline that it takes to play this particular golf course. It’s going to take a lot,” he said Tuesday after a third straight day of playing nine holes.
This is his first U.S. Open since Winged Foot in 2020.
He has practiced. He has chipped and putted. Woods just doesn’t play very much, courtesy of a 48-year-old body wracked by injuries — five back surgeries, four knee surgeries, and those were before his February 2021 car crash in Los Angeles that shattered his right leg and ankle.
Woods spent Tuesday morning with Max Homa and Min Woo Lee, with 15-year-old son Charlie along for the ride. More than just a spectator, Woods said Charlie knows his game as well as anyone and can serve as an extra set of eyes.
“I trust him with my swing and my game. He’s seen it more than anybody else in the world. He’s seen me hit more golf balls than anyone,” Woods said. “He gave me a couple little side bits today, which was great, because I get so entrenched in hitting certain putts to certain pins, I tend to forget some of the things I’m working on.”
Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore spearheaded the restoration of Pinehurst No. 2, perhaps the most famous of all Donald Ross courses, ahead of the 2014 U.S. Open. Rough was replaced by native sandy areas and hundreds of native plants, the most treacherous being wire brush that dots the landscape. That wasn’t a big change for Woods because it hasn’t affected where to hit it.
The more subtle change for this year is the greens going from bent grass to a strain of Bermuda grass, which could make the turtleback surfaces even tougher in severe heat expected on the weekend.
For Woods, the first step is making the weekend. He set the record at the Masters by making his 24th consecutive cut, but then missed the cut badly at the PGA Championship.
It’s never been about cuts for Woods. He now has gone 11 consecutive tournaments that he finished without finishing closer than 10 shots of the winner.
