Taylor conquers wind to win at Pebble Beach

Tiger Woods grew up near Riviera Country Club. He knows the place, says it fits his eye. Yet it is the tournament he has played the most without a win. Why is that?

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SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. – This will be an old-school U.S. Open. There’s no other way to put it. After all, we’re at the site of the United States’ second national championship and on a course that was one of the USGA’s five founding clubs. They’ve been playing golf at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club since 1891. This is the only course to host a U.S. Open in three separate centuries. We’re at a traditional site and the fairways are lined by the tournament’s trademark thick rough. Ballstriking is always important at a U.S. Open, and this week will be no exception, but Shinnecock Hills also puts high demands on a player’s short game. The three modern U.S. Opens at Shinnecock Hills were all won with memorable performances around the greens. Raymond Floyd, winner of the 1986 U.S. Open at Shinnecock, was so good around the greens that he wrote a book on the subject. It paid off in the first round’s difficult conditions.  “I hit five greens in regulation and shot a 75 that could have been 85,â€� Floyd told Golf Digest. He went on to win by two shots over Chip Beck and Lanny Wadkins. “I won the tournament on Thursday. I played terrible, had no feel and somehow survived.” Corey Pavin was known as the Gritty Little Bruin because of his small frame and deft wedge game that allowed him to compete against players who outdrove him by half a football field. He hit less than half the greens at Shinnecock Hills (35 of 72) but beat Greg Norman by two shots in 1995. Retief Goosen scrambled magnificently after the greens baked out in the final round here in 2004. He hit just six greens Sunday but one-putted 12 times in his final-round 71. After hitting 14 greens in the first round, he hit just 28 over the final 54 holes. That trend could continue this week thanks to the expanded areas of short grass installed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw. The enlarged fairways will command a lot of the attention this week, but short grass surrounds almost all of the greens, exposing the contours that architect William Flynn installed around the putting surfaces. Even though Shinnecock Hills’ greens were expanded before this year’s U.S. Open, they play smaller than their square footage indicates because the edges of those putting surfaces are steep slopes that repel approach shots. Players who miss those greens will have to chip, or putt, back up those slopes to save par. “Your short game, your touch, has got to be on point,â€� said defending champion Brooks Koepka. Jason Day wouldn’t be surprised if a short-game specialist was holding the trophy Sunday, he said. This setup could help the man who most needs a win this week. Phil Mickelson needs a U.S. Open victory to complete the career Grand Slam. He’s finished fourth and second in two previous U.S. Opens here.  Mickelson said the short grass around the greens would be a “huge factorâ€� this week because of the delicate touch needed to execute chips and pitches from short grass. Short grass also increases a player’s options and reduces their reliance on luck. “If you do miss a green, … (the ball) will stay where touch will be a factor,â€� Mickelson said. “I love how that has been brought into it, rather than the hack out of the rough, hope it comes out okay factor.â€� THREE PLAYERS TO PONDER Phil Mickelson: He still needs the U.S. Open to complete the career Grand Slam. He contended in the previous two U.S. Opens at Shinnecock Hills before being undone by a double-bogey on one of the closing holes. Dustin Johnson: The 2016 U.S. Open champion is coming off an impressive victory at the FedEx St. Jude Classic. He’s second in the FedExCup. Justin Thomas: The FedExCup leader came close at last year’s U.S. Open, shooting a third-round 63 to get within a shot of the lead. A final-round 75 dropped him into ninth place but taught him valuable lessons that paid off at the PGA Championship and FedExCup. THE FLYOVER  Shinnecock Hills’ finishing hole is 485 yards after being lengthened 35 yards since 2004. The new tee creates more of a blind tee shot. The prevailing breeze blows right-to-left, while the fairway slopes from left-to-right. A drive into the right side of the fairway gives a better angle for the approach shot and better view of the green. WEATHER CHECK Temperatures will be ideal, with the high temperature not forecast to creep above 80 degrees. Wednesday afternoon thunderstorms are the only precipitation predicted for the week. Wind is the course’s biggest defense and it is scheduled to blow at least 10 mph all four days. Thursday is forecast to be the breeziest day, with winds forecast to blow 14 mph. Click here to keep track of Shinnecock Hills’ weather throughout the week. SOUND CHECK I finally feel like I’m playing a U.S. Open that I’m used to seeing growing up, where a couple under par is a good score.You can’t get away with one ball flight all the time. You kind of have to maneuver it around off different slopes and winds. It just requires more of an artistic approach. BY THE NUMBERS 19: Number of amateurs in the field, the most since 1962. Notable names include the world’s top-ranked amateur, Doug Ghim, and No. 3 Braden Thornberry. Ghim was runner-up at the 2017 U.S. Amateur and low amateur at the Masters. Thornberry won last year’s NCAA Championship and is coming off a T26 finish at last week’s FedEx St. Jude Classic. 10: Number of holes that were lengthened for this year’s U.S. Open. The course will play 7,445 yards, about 500 yards longer than in 2004. 35: The winners of all three modern U.S. Opens at Shinnecock Hills were all 35 or older. Raymond Floyd (43) was the oldest winner in U.S. Open history when he won here in 1986; that record was broken by 45-year-old Hale Irwin four years later.  5: Number of players in this year’s field who also played in the 1995 and 2004 U.S. Opens at Shinnecock: Ernie Els, Phil Mickelson, Kenny Perry, Steve Stricker and Tiger Woods. Mickelson and Woods were exempt into the field. Els received a special exemption. Stricker went through sectional qualifying in Memphis. Perry won last year’s U.S. Senior Open. SCATTERSHOTS Patrick Reed is the only man with a chance to win the Grand Slam this year. He also has been almost unbeatable in the past two majors. Reed preceded his Masters victory with a T2 at the PGA Championship. It was his first top-10 in a major. “Winning the last major, it definitely gives me that self-belief (and) comfort level that whatever comes down Sunday, if we have a chance to win the golf tournament, I’ve done it before.â€� Reed is seventh in this season’s FedExCup standings. Jason Day is staying on his recreational vehicle, within walking distance of the course. Tiger Woods is using his yacht for lodging this week. Anything to avoid the infamous traffic leading into Shinnecock Hills this week. The course is located on a skinny spit of land on Long Island’s east side. Only one road leads into Shinnecock from the east, which leads to long back-ups. It’s taken some a couple hours for some to travel the last few miles to the course. The traffic is so bad that Woods said he wouldn’t be surprised if it caused a player to miss his tee time. “There are a few guys … who have said it’s taken them from the hotel 2 1/2 to 3 hours,â€� Woods said. “You get a little traffic, you get maybe a little fender bender, it’s not inconceivable someone could miss their time.â€� Rory McIlroy said he’s staying just three minutes from the course. “I don’t know if we were very smart or very lucky,â€� he said. “One of the two.â€�

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It was already dark on Sunday night when Ted Scott's stepfather, Kenny Miller, picked the veteran caddie up at the Pensacola, Florida airport. Scott had hopped a ride with his boss, Bubba Watson, on a private plane after the final round of the U.S. Open at Winged Foot. He slipped behind the wheel of the pickup truck so his "bonus dad" could rest and started driving to Miller's waterfront home in Orange Beach, Alabama, about 27 miles from Pensacola. Orange Beach is where Hurricane Sally had come ashore on the previous Wednesday as a Category 2 storm, bringing torrential rain and unleashing winds in excess of 100 miles an hour. Scott didn't see the full extent of the damage until the light of the following morning. "I was like, wow, it's insane," he recalls. The boat his parents had bought from friends a couple of months earlier was literally split in two, dissected by the pilings of the dock. Part of one of their decks had floated away. There were about six inches of mud and debris under the 10-foot pilings that supported the house. Miller, though, had already dismantled the 30-foot tree that was leaning against the deck on the second floor of the home. The soon-to-be 70-year-old - who Scott notes "is nuts sometimes but we love him" — climbed to the top of an aluminum ladder and used a chainsaw to cut it into manageable pieces. "And trust me when I tell you, it’s not even a story, their house," Scott says, the sincerity evident in his voice. "When compared to other people it’s not even worth talking about. Obviously, I’m there to help my parents first, but when you drive down the road, I mean, literally, this is crazy." Some of the Miller's neighbors lived in older homes that weren't built on stilts so the flooding was bad. He posted a video on Instagram where he was walking down the street where his mother Sher and Miller live, the roadside lined with warped cabinets, kitchen sinks, taped up, empty refrigerators and moldy clothing, waiting for the next garbage pickup, whenever that might be. "It’s heartbreaking to see that in the video, you’re driving by people’s lives and, seeing their lives being thrown out on the road," Scott says. Scott saw a tow truck pull up next to the Miller's house earlier this week to cart off a neighbor's brand-new Jeep and a Ford sedan that had been ruined by the storm surge. On one of the main roads leading to Orange Beach, there's a 35-foot yacht that washed ashore, nestled against the steel barricades. "People drive around and say, hey, have you seen like a, a red tool chest?" Scott says. "My stepdad, he put like five really nice items that he found at his house out in the yard, hoping somebody would, like, drive by and go, oh, that’s mine and get it. I think there’s a Facebook group that they put it on, too. "It's like a really nice motorcycle helmet, a real nice inner tube that you pull behind a boat … looks brand new. It’s randomly in his yard now. … One of Bubba’s friends has a barge, literally a barge, in his yard in Pensacola, Florida, a literal barge. It’s crazy. It’s crazy. It's wild what those storms do." But there have been signs of hope, and that's what Scott wants to focus on. Like the people who drive down the street every hour or so, yelling out their car windows, asking if someone needs water or is hungry and wants one of the sandwiches they made. Wondering simply how they can help. "That’s the coolest stuff," Scott says. "Just random people driving around, trying to give somebody food, water, help, whatever they can do, you know? And that’s awesome. Like that’s what life should be about. You know, it’s just so fun." Just a few weeks earlier, Scott and his wife Melanie, who he says can outwork just about anybody and has the same servant's heart he does, had been those random people, making 90-minute drive west from their home outside Lafayette, Louisiana to Lake Charles, which took the hardest hit from Hurricane Laura when the Category 4 storm made landfall on Aug. 27. Our Savior's Church, where they worship, has been sending work groups there three times a week to do whatever is needed. "We basically bring chainsaws and blue tarps, and we hear by word of mouth — she’s got a tree on her house or her driveway or this man needs to tarp his roof," Scott says. "… It’s just complete devastation in Lake Charles." Scott's mother and stepfather were visiting that day. When Kenny Miller heard where Scott and Melanie were headed, he said, "Not without me," Scott recalls. "He’s about to be 70 years old and he’ll outwork anybody," the caddie says. "He just loves to help people, and little did he know that a few weeks later that his place would be devastated in that sense and need all that help. So, it’s just tough. "But at the same time, it’s kind of cool to take a break from all the garbage of the day that’s going on and see people coming together." Scott says Lake Charles was basically flattened. The 160 mph winds were so strong that radio towers were bent in two. One of the people they helped that day had two trees fall on his house, one of which was an oak three-and-a-half feet in diameter, that cracked in half. "So literally you have five people with chainsaws and 15 other people that were over there in this man’s yard, trying to figure out, we don’t have, we don’t have a big, huge excavator or a big claw that can grab this tree and pull it up," Scott recalls. "We’re chopping this massive tree and one little bite at a time and try not to damage the rest of the house. We’re tying ropes to the piece for cutting off and trying to lower that down and not kill anybody. It’s crazy, but it’s awesome. It’s like, it’s so fun, right, because you’re like, man, this guy has been pretty much almost in tears when you leave, because now you can at least tarp his house and salvage it. … "That’s the joy that I get, and I think all the volunteers get. I want people to see that and want to help because it’s so worth it. … You get so much joy, you walk away as tired as you’ve ever been, but satisfied." Scott says the need for manpower in Lake Charles or Orange Beach or countless other cities along the Gulf Coast isn't going to go away any time soon. He would like to see others be moved to help - either by volunteering or donating to local churches and charities like loveacadiana.org who have boots on the ground and understand the local landscape. Scott is also hosting a golf clinic to benefit the hurricane survivors at The Wetlands in Lafayette at 3 p.m. on Saturday along with the club's head pro David Gary and local golf instructor and minister Daniel Kelly. The clinic costs $20, with other contributions welcome, and more information can be obtained by calling 337-291-7151. He knows what can happen if people pull together and put their differences aside. "These are the kind of stories that warm my heart," Scott says. "Like, you’ll hear about the people that are helping their neighbor and I’m sure there’s all kinds of Democrats and Republicans helping each other right now, which is fun. "That’s like how it should be, we should be able to disagree on politics, but still get along as neighbors. And that’s the one good thing I can say about a storm is that when you have this kind of devastation people will literally do everything they can to help each other out."

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