SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — If you were worried about whether Rory McIlroy, the reigning Masters champion, would find suitable partners for some Wednesday-afternoon tune-up golf, here on the eve of the sixth U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, you can stop worrying.
McIlroy went off the 10th tee a little after 2 p.m., playing with Mason Howell and Hamilton Coleman. Both are 18-year-old native Georgians who will matriculate at the University of Georgia at the end of summer, where they will be roommates. Both had tour bags every bit as big as Rory McIlroy’s bag.
The fellas chatted easily with McIlroy, 37 and bound for the World Golf Hall of Fame. Both are McIlroy’s match for swing speed and ball speed and get-on-with-it speed. If they were intimidated at all, there was no outward sign of it. McIlroy made a subtle nod when Coleman, who looks to weight about 138 pounds, smashed a driver off 10. Coleman nodded back like this — a practice round with one of the best golfers in history — is an every day. Kids these days. Kids!
Waiting to play a hole, McIlroy started doing the bouncing ball thing, turning the face of his wedge into a trampoline, bouncing his ball again and again of its scoring lines until one bounce got away from him. McIlroy watched as his ball went right into his golf bag, falling straight to its bottom with an immediate and audible thud. He offered a rueful laugh and he and his caddie, Harry Diamond, started to pull the clubs out of the bag, with a plan to retrieve the ball, before giving up. McIlroy put out his hand for a new ball.
All the while, Howell kept doing his own bouncing ball routine, stopping the ball in the face of his wedge whenever he felt like it. A kind of magic trick, really — fun-and-games, on the eve of the U.S. Open. Howell was wearing an embroidered belt with ANGC stenciled on it. That is, the Augusta National Golf Club. In April, Howell played in his first Masters, earning a spot in the field, and a spot in Rory McIlroy’s Thursday-Friday threesome, as the U.S. Amateur champion.
If Mason Howell and Hamilton Coleman are two of the prominent faces of elite American amateur golf for the next couple-three years, elite American amateur golf will be in a good place, for skill, for poise, for a do-it-right ethos. In case you were worried about it. Rory McIlroy didn’t agree to join these kids, half his age, out of happenstance.
If you were worried about the quality of the greens, here at Shinnecock Hills, based on Michael Kim’s comments or anything else, don’t be. The Korean-born golfer, with a notably active social-media life, described the greens as “spongy” and “quite bumpy” and pockmarked with “aerification holes” in a post on Tuesday. The greens were not spongy by Wednesday afternoon, and Rory & Friends went around. They were not bumpy. The teenagers were rolling one tumbling putt after another. The greens were dotted with dark healed aerification holes. They will do nothing to a well-struck end-over-end putt.
These beautiful and sloping William Flynn greens here are a variety of colors, as exposed greens on windblown courses near open water often are. You can see shades of poa and rye and bent on the greens, along with the aeration dots. These are not Oakmont greens or Augusta National greens. They’re Shinnecock greens and they are more than ready for the test.
If you were worried about the USGA and how it will handle the demands of putting on a U.S. Open on an exposed and hilly course with four days of wind in the weather forecast, don’t be. For starters, golf is an outdoor sport (with all due respect to TGL indoor play) and the challenges of weather are elemental parts of the game. More to the point, this current USGA regime — the president, Kevin Hammer, whose father was a club pro; the CEO, Mike Whan, who made his way in golf as an effective LPGA commissioner; John Bodenhamer, who runs the USGA’s championships and has obsessively watched previous Shinnecock Opens to learn what he could — is comfortable reducing green speeds and keeping the greens moist in the name of keeping balls on the green in the wind.
In other words, we’re going to get 72 holes of golf in, over these next four days, and it will be good, by which we mean it will be interesting. So don’t worry. As the kids say, or used to, it’s all good.
Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com