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The perfect player for Pinehurst

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Posted: Monday June 14, 1999 10:24 PM

Normally U.S Open courses are made to look alike. Narrow tree-lined fairways pinched down further by long and heavy rough, with greens surrounded by still more of the cabbage.

Pnehurst No. 2 will be different. Its trees are far off the fairway and the Bermuda rough won't be as stifling. Most distinctively, the crowned greens will fall off not into hairy collars, but rather into hollows of closely cut grass that will provide more chip and run play than any Open ever.

Winning will require slightly different skills than at a conventional Open. And so we put together a composite of the perfect player for Pinehurst.

To hit the driver, we want Jeff Maggert. Length won't be a huge consideration at No. 2, nor will the ability to curve balls into hills, as most of the fairways are flat. The best shot will be a hard running straight ball, which Maggert, who ranks second on the tour in driving accuracy, produces like a machine.

For iron approaches from the fairway, the choice is Lee Janzen. The defending champion naturally hits a high, very soft landing shot that is ideal for No. 2's greens, which require that a ball stop quickly to keep from running off the small plateaus where the pins will be set. Janzen is not a great wind player, but there doesn't figure to be much breeze next week in the sweltering Carolina Sand Hills.

David Duval will thrive from Pinehurst's fairway rough. Players who stray from the tee will only rarely have to pitch out into the fairway, as the Bermuda will be cut at a length to usually allow some kind of shot at the green. But it will take great strength and control to keep such a shot on the putting surface, and no power player in golf has as much control as Duval.

Pinehurst will be the ultimate examination in chipping, and golf's best is Jose Maria Olazabal. As he proved at the Masters, the 33-year-old Spaniard is an artist at the delicate in-between shots that must be bumped onto the green.

Putting at Pinehurst will also be unique, and our choice to wield the flat stick is Justin Leonard. From off the green, the putter will often be the club of choice, but it will take skill, nerve and incredible touch to correctly calculate the ball's journey from fairway to green and over the inevitable humps. Leonard, who grew up in Dallas, is a natural with the Texas wedge.

No player can be as good as our composite but the pick here is for Olazabal to take the second leg of the Grand Slam and become the first European to win the U.S. Open since Tony Jacklin in 1970.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Jaime Diaz covers the golf beat and appears regularly on CNN/Sports Illustrated and CNN's Pro Golf Weekly.

 

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