Shinnecock Hills is a difficult test at the best of times, but it’s a challenge that is made infinitely more difficult out of the fairway.
It’s a second-shot golf course, with so much emphasis being put on iron play to find the right sections of the undulating greens. But that’s largely because the fairways are so wide.
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If you did manage to miss the fairway, making a par felt like a birdie. It’s nearly impossible to succeed around Shinnecock from the rough. But that’s exactly what one player did.
A player in the US Open field hit the fewest fairways of any player, but made the cut thanks to a red-hot performance on the greens.
Photo by Mike Mulholland/Getty Images
How Peter Uihlein recovered from being the least accurate driver at the US Open
At the 2026 US Open at Shinnecock, Peter Uihlein hit 25 of 56 fairways. During his first round, he was in the fairway only five of 14 times, and hit only half his fairways in round two. But somehow, he made the cut.
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That’s because on the greens, Uihlein was a monster. He led the field in total putting distance made per round, at an incredible 105 feet on these undulating greens.
Uihlein was second in Strokes Gained: Putting, gaining 1.56 strokes to the field on the greens behind only Keith Mitchell, who finished in the top 10.
It was an unbelievably gutsy performance to be able to constantly make testing par putts for four rounds, and make it to the weekend.
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