HOLE 18
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HOLE 11 PAR 3, 155 YARDS
HOLE 14 PAR 4, 520 YARDS
HOLE 18 PAR 4, 490 YARDS
Lee Trevino once described the par- 3 11th as “the shortest par 5 in golf.” In windy conditions, 5 is not a deal- breaker. The tee shot is 40 feet uphill to a skyline green banked over three deep bunkers, and a shaved embank- ment behind it leaves impossibly delicate chips and pitches back up to the tabletop putting surface. In the final round of the 2018 Open, Brooks Koepka was in the rough nearly 30 yards behind the green and looked to be dead. He pitched up and over into a front bunker, splashed out and then sank a 13-footer to preserve his lead. Under the circumstances it’s one of the great bogeys in US Open history..
The 14th is the longest par 4 on the course, and it’s a beauty that plays downhill into a valley between high and low dune ridges. Flynn was known for walking properties repeatedly while routing courses, and he would have quickly identified this area’s val- ley and saddled green site as features that would comprise one of the most natural golf holes he’d ever build. The fairway was once lined with scrub pines before Shinnecock removed nearly all the property’s trees in the early 2000s, and the green is the rare one where flared wings corral rather than reject balls, helpful when bouncing in long approach shots.
The par-4 18th patrols the ground alongside the ninth hole like a twin ser- pent, slithering beneath it over a series of blind ridges. The drive must chal- lenge a bunker carved into a shoulder on the left or risk shooting off a big fair- way contour into the rough on the low side. Though the green is located away from the clubhouse near the foot of the ninth, it’s situated perfectly, hooked into a bowled pocket with a menacing back-to-front slope. Corey Pavin made the hole look easy with his 229-yard 4-wood that he hit to five feet to clinch the 1995 Open, but it’s really a mon- strous finishing hole.
GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA 73
JUNE 2026
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