SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — To say the things that Ángel Hidalgo does with a golf club are akin to what Picasso did with a paintbrush would be an insult to Hidalgo. Such is the depth of the 28-year-old Spaniard’s golfing creativity.
High cuts and low draws? Hidalgo could hit them blindfolded. Drivers off the deck, hooking spinners to tucked pins and sawed-off, flighted wedges that check harder than Magnus Carlsen? Yep, Hidalgo, whose father and grandfather were both golf pros, also has all those bits of wizardry in his arsenal.
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Close followers of the DP World Tour, where Hidalgo has won once (2024 Open de España), will be familiar with Hidalgo’s shot-shaping prowess, as will regulars on golf Twitter, where clips of Hidalgo’s inventive shot-making often make the rounds. After Hidalgo carded an eye-popping 63 at the Irish Open last year, he said, “I feel for a few moments like I was playing in a PlayStation.”
This week here at Shinnecock, Hidalgo is playing in his first U.S. Open and just his third major overall. On Thursday, he made five birdies and shot 69. On Friday, he made three more and signed for a 74 to make the cut by two and make some personal history.
“I’m so happy to be in a weekend finally in a major,” he said.
In brutal winds Saturday, Hidalgo opened with back-to-back bogeys before getting a stroke back at the par-4 4th, where he spun back his approach to a foot. Hidalgo hadn’t yet delivered one of his signature how’d-he-do-that shots, but it was coming. After finding the right side of the fairway at the par-5th, Hidalgo had 268 yards left to the hole. Time to go full Ángel.
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Fairway wood in hand, Hidalgo wound up and hammered down on his ball, his follow-through stopping at shoulder height with his clubface pointed skyward.
“Trying to play a runner,” a voice said from the booth. “This is an interesting shot.”
Ingenious was another word. Hidalgo’s ball rocketed off the face, stayed low and out of the wind, before touching down and catching the left side of the left-to-right slope in front of the green. The ball rode the wave like a surfer in a pipeline, coming to rest 30 feet right of the hole, from where Hidalgo two-putted for birdie.
After Hidalgo’s round, GOLF.com showed him a video of the shot and asked him to explain how he did it.
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He smiled.
“I try to imagine I’m playing a links course into the wind and just try to hit as low as I can, pretty straight and be really focused, because that shot was wind from the left,” he said. “So it’s easy for me to, to over-cut it. I just try to feel a little bit maybe on the toe and punch it, and maintain very low [flight]. The the bounce was pretty good. It was a great shot.”
Hidalgo said he talked through the shot with his caddie, Álvaro Alonso, and they agreed he needed to land his ball on the left side of the fairway so it would roll onto the green.
“It’s a little bit imagination,” he said.
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I asked Hidalgo how often he employs that sawed-off move.
“If you see a video of me, on YouTube or whatever, with my driver and woods, I’m…”
He paused and laughed.
“If you think Scottie Scheffler moves a lot, you didn’t see my swing yet.”
Hidalgo, who shot 74 in the third round and is seven over for the week, will need a lot more magic if he’s going to put a scare into the leaders on Sunday. As of this writing, he was 13 back of Wyndham Clark and eight back of Clark’s closest chasers, who are at one under.
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