Criticizing Shinnecock Hills’ treacherous greens is a time-honored U.S. Open tradition. On Monday at the 2026 U.S. Open at the iconic Long Island club, a new pro took up that baton. But his negative review differed drastically from the usual complaints.
That player is PGA Tour winner Michael Kim. Kim, who has a large base of followers on social media, will play in his third career U.S. Open this week and his first at Shinnecock.
Kim is well known for providing behind-the-scenes insight from all the tournaments he plays. While he generally stays positive and steers away from hot takes, he has also built a reputation for making honest observations and not pulling any punches.
That was the case when he took to X Monday night to offer his surprising criticism of Shinnecock’s green conditions to start the week.
Michael Kim offers less-than-glowing review of Shinnecock’s famous greens at U.S. Open
Traditionally, Shinnecock’s greens take hits from U.S. Open competitors for being too fast and too hard, which, when coupled with high ocean winds, makes the test so tough that certain players experience a momentary loss of sanity.
At the 2018 U.S. Open at Shinnecock, for example, two-time major winner Zach Johnson went on live TV and declared that the USGA had “lost the golf course.” That same year, Phil Mickelson, so flustered by Shinny’s slick putting surfaces, whacked at his ball on the 13th green… before it had come to rest.
After playing his first practice round for the 2026 event on Monday, Kim offered another less-than-glowing review of Shinnecock’s greens. But the surprising adjectives Kim used in his description of the green conditions early this week — including “spongy”, “quite bumpy” and dotted with “aerification holes” — made it sound like he’d played a very different course than the one Mickelson malfunctioned on eight years ago.
In his first description, Kim reported that the greens were “decently receptive and not crazy fast,” which he attributed to the greens crew countering high winds that rankled players on Monday. Those are not modifiers commonly associated with Shinnecock.
“Talking about the greens… the greens are spongy so far. Decently receptive and not crazy fast,” Kim wrote on X. “I think they want to make sure to not lose the greens especially with how much wind is forecasted on Thursday.”
His next missive was far more surprising. Kim called the green surfaces “bumpy” and claimed they still showed evidence of the last aeration, something recreational golfers are more accustomed to than major competitors.
“They’re also… quite bumpy,” Kim wrote on Monday. “Poa greens plus some of the aerification holes are [not] completely fixed. You can still see the outline of the punched holes. Putting is going to be super tricky.”
Kim’s review didn’t stop at the greens, extending beyond them to the bunker sand, which he said featured “a lot of rocks and shells.”
“The bunkers have a lot of rocks and shells in them. Can lead to weird rocky lies but also spray the green with a bunch of rocks too. We’re allowed to move rocks but thought that was an interesting set up,” Kim wrote.
A lot can change between now and the start of the opening round of this 126th U.S. Open on Thursday. But if any of Kim’s observations about the course conditions remain true come game-time, you can expect a lot more complaints from players up and down the leaderboard.
