SOUTHAMPTON, NEW YORK | At his first public press conference earlier this year Brian Rolapp, newly installed as CEO of the PGA Tour, was asked by a pesky and inquisitive journalist whether he had yet come to terms with the pink ties and shirts favoured by Guy Kinnings, the chief executive of the DP World Tour.
Kinnings’ penchant for pink is one of his personal idiosyncrasies and he has become so well known for this that Tiger Woods calls him “Mr. Pink” and now Rolapp begins conversations with Kinnings by asking “and how is the best-dressed man in golf?”
A few days ago, “the best dressed man in golf” was animated and genial as ever during a telephone conversation. His voice was thick with enthusiasm, and a sense of excitement transmitted itself through the telephonic ether.
Kinnings was talking of the success of golfers from the U.K. in the two major championships so far this year, Rory McIlroy’s win at the Masters and Aaron Rai’s at the PGA Championship. He was considering whether either or both of these portended a third.
“Two’s history,” Kinnings said. “[But a third] … would be very nice. Look at how the guys have played this year. We have had some great winners, some young emerging talent on the DPWT but to see what the dual members, our players, are doing on the PGA Tour is extraordinary. There was a time when they had won six of the past nine events or something.”
“That would be a great way to make history for three in a row from the U.K.,” Justin Rose, the 2013 U.S. Open champion, said during his Wednesday afternoon news conference ahead of this year’s championship. “Obviously Aaron has broken a bit of a drought again. I think – I hoped that I broke that drought back in 2013. Obviously, Fitzy [Matt Fitzpatrick] has won the U.S. Open as well, but if you look at relative to world ranking through the years, especially English players, I don’t think we’ve won as many majors since [Nick] Faldo as we could have or should have. Obviously Aaron, that was an amazing win for him and a nice breakout win. Yeah, we’d love to keep that record going.”
We are indeed at a moment in history, here at Shinnecock Hills, perched on a spit of land between Peconic Bay on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other, where trains go hootin’ and tootin’ as they pass and the wind hardly ever never blows. As you drive around the narrow roads so common in this part of Long Island and so familiar to one from the United Kingdom, you pass one spanking course to one side of you and then within yards you pass another to the other side.
Shinnecock Hills and the National Golf Links of America are two of the grandest golf courses in the world so let’s spark a discussion by claiming that they are as close to one another as are Hillside and Royal Birkdale and together they are better even than Sunningdale’s Old and New courses, or Royal Melbourne’s East and West. Of course, the salty smack of the sea and the knowledge that it is rarely more than a hefty drive away is one point of difference between these two New York gems and others around the world.
“Yeah, there’s a lot of talented golfers coming out of Europe and out of the U.K.” – Rory McIlroy
McIlroy’s second victory at the Masters in April was tumultuous though not so tumultuous as his first and Rai’s triumph at Aronimink in May was acclaimed by his peers. Rai, the man known rarely to raise his voice, the man who wears black gloves on his hands and continually tugs a head covering be it a cap or a visor pulled down over his eyes, sent a message resounding around the world.
“Yeah, there’s a lot of talented golfers coming out of Europe and out of the U.K.,” McIlroy said. “Aaron has definitely, like, forged his own path and done it his own way. It was amazing to see him do what he did at Aronimink.”
Referring to his fellow golfers from Europe, McIlroy continued: “The majority of our golf is in the United States, three of the four major championships are here. I think just over time we’ve got a lot more comfortable with the style of golf that you need to play and the setups around here.
Scottie Scheffler had not noticed the significance of what McIlroy and Rai had done in the past two months.
“What significance?” the world’s No. 1 golfer asked when it was drawn to his attention, a look of surprise on his face. “It’s never happened before?”
“Not the first two, no,” came the reply.
“That’s a bit surprising with the amount of talent that’s come out of the U.K.,” Scheffler said. “I think golf is becoming increasingly a global game. I look at these young guys come out of college these days here in the States, and they’re from all over the globe, and they have a ton of talent, and they’re ready to compete out here from a very young age.”
The next question was easy: whether a man from the U.K. could win the 126th U.S. Open and make it three major championship victories in a row, a three-peat.
“So, yeah, obviously a historic start to the major season …” McIlroy said. “I would say this is more a U.K./European style of test than the first two majors at Augusta and Aronimink. So it certainly wouldn’t surprise me to see a few players from Europe and the U.K. in contention on Sunday.”
Scheffler has his own reasons for not wanting that to happen this week. Were he to win, he would complete the career Grand Slam, becoming the seventh man to do so. Not that he would get too carried away with victory.
“Sometimes the feeling lasts about two minutes, it seems like, when you’re celebrating,” he said at last year’s Open Championship, which he won at Royal Portrush. “And then it’s like, OK, now you’ve got to go do all the other stuff, which is great … It’s pretty exciting but it doesn’t last that long.
“I think the great thing about this course specifically from what I’ve noticed, is if you’re executing and you’re hitting the ball in the right spots, you can play this golf course,” Scheffler continued. “I think the minute you start hitting the ball off line, you are like, man, how do I even finish this hole, I think is sometimes what it feels like.”
So there we are. The outcome here at Shinnecock comes down to ball striking and accurate hitting and a facility for dealing with the wind more than where a golfer hails from. It wouldn’t do that golfer any harm either were he to have 11 single putts in their final round as Retief Goosen did on his way to winning this championship at this venue in 2004.
Might it be McIlroy, again, or Tommy Fleetwood, who played a sizzling round of golf – a 63 – on the fourth day of the 2018 U.S. Open here; or Fitzpatrick, who is growing impressively in confidence and capability; or Wyndham Clark, whose statistics are pointing to a possible second victory in his country’s national championship; or Xander Schauffele, who has had five top-10 finishes in this event starting in 2019?
Kinnings’ colours were nailed firmly to the mast. “We’re going for history,” Mr. Pink said. “[We’ve had] European winners of the first two majors for the first time ever. I am going to be crossing my fingers for a third.”