Village People
Noted golf writer, author and blogger Geoff Shackelford had not been to Pinehurst in the decade since the 2014 U.S. Open was held on No. 2.
The Shot
Final groups of the U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2, a quarter-century apart.
Payne Stewart in 1999 needs a par to hold off playing partner Phil Mickelson, but his tee shot on the uphill, par-4 finishing hole misses the fairway to the right. He’s in five inches of suffocating rough, the grass wet on a cool, misty day. He punches out, has 78 yards to the hole, hits a three-quarter sand wedge to 18 feet short of the back-right hole location.
The Big Three
It made for a great story in the heady days of the late-1980s golf boom: Arnie and Jack battling it out once again, staking their immense abilities and reputations face-to-face as they’d done so many times at places like Augusta and Pebble Beach and Oakmont. Only this battle wasn’t with their drivers and putters and steely determination to hole 12-footers for birdie. This was about golf-course design.