'It's Just Weird How Soft The Greens Are' - What The Players Are Saying About The US Open Setup

The setup has been the big story at Shinnecock Hills this week, with high forecasted winds throwing a spanner into the works for the USGA's US Open plans.

Shinnecock is one of the toughest courses in the game and controversial 2004 and 2018 US Opens at the venue, where the USGA was accused of 'losing' the golf course, mean the organizers have erred on the safe side this week.

They've done that by keeping the turf in good health and syringing the greens every day as well as slowing them down. With speeds of just 10.5 on the stimpmeter, the 2026 US Open greens are the slowest in over 30 years.

High winds came as expected on Thursday but a two-hour fog delay meant the afternoon starters played slightly later in the day and benefitted from some more benign conditions.

Wyndham Clark, who only completed 16 holes on day one, reached six-under-par to take an early four-stroke lead.

Players were slightly perplexed at how soft the greens were, with some wedge shots resulting in balls spinning back off of the putting surfaces - a rarity in US Opens when greens tend to be extremely firm.

The winds still led to extremely difficult conditions, as Shinnecock Hills is tough even on a good day, but once winds died down the course was much more playable for the later starters.

So, what were the players saying?

On the whole, they seemed happy. Dustin Johnson, who played in the afternoon, admitted he had benefitted from the better conditions, while morning starters seemed to think the USGA had done a good job to keep the course playable in such high winds.

Here's a collection of views from some of the US Open competitors:

Brooks Koepka (morning):

"Yeah, the conditions were tough. It's just weird how soft the greens are. It's just odd. It's not what I remember.

"I mean, I understand why they're soft, I get that. It's not complaining. It's just a difficult day."

Dustin Johnson (afternoon):

"Obviously toward the last hour we played, the wind laid down a little bit. With the course being quite soft, it definitely played a little bit easier.

"But at the start of the day, it was playing very, very difficult.

"Obviously we got maybe a little fortunate there towards the end just because the wind did lay down just a hair for us, but it still played tough, so I had to hit good shots."

Rory McIlroy (morning):

"Look, the greens are pretty slow and quite receptive. I think they need to be at this point. It's a challenging golf course already, and you put 30-mile-an-hour winds on top of it, it tests the best players in the world pretty well.

"I think they were prudent with the course setup, and I think especially with starting with 156 the first two days, you just want to get everyone around without too much issue. They've set the course up for that, at least today."

Scottie Scheffler (morning):

"I would say the greens were maybe a little softer than I expected, but I think with the wind that was forecasted, you always want to err on the side of caution. I think the last thing that they wanted was having balls blowing off greens. So they might have put a little extra juice on them last night to slow them down.

"Most of the greens have all been fine. I think there's a couple greens where there's so much pitch that you get the wind going down the slope, it can roll off pretty easily.

"I would say it was probably maybe a little softer than I thought. Just I had imagined it would be firm and slow, I guess."

Sam Stevens (morning):

"Yeah, it's an awesome place. It's visually very appealing. I know it's played really hard here in the past, but they've kind of known this Thursday was going to be pretty windy. So the greens haven't been too firm, the fairways haven't been too firm.

"So I've really felt like it's pretty scoreable. Obviously it's difficult, but overall it's an awesome place. I think the setup's great right now."

Tommy Fleetwood (morning):

"It's about as bare as you can probably get it. I was surprised on Monday the course was very, very soft and slow, but they clearly judged it perfectly, and I think today - well, hardly anybody would want to play it any harder than what it was.

"Yeah, I think they did an amazing job of making it as fair as you could possibly make a test of golf today with the conditions that they had. Yeah, they did great."

Wyndham Clark (afternoon):

"I would say when I got my tee times on Tuesday, I was like, oh, could be a tough draw. That two-hour fog delay was very helpful, and it was really nice it laid down. So it definitely helped those last six, seven holes we played."

What are you making of the 2026 US Open setup? Join the conversation in the comments section below.