Wagner shows how native grass, greens make Pinehurst tough | Live From the U.S. Open | Golf Channel

With the myriad native grass areas adding to the difficulty of Pinehurst No. 2 for this week’s U.S. Open, Johnson Wagner demonstrates on hole 14 just what makes it so tough — and the greens don’t help, either. #GolfChannel #USOpen #Pinehurst
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Wagner shows how native grass, greens make Pinehurst tough | Live From the U.S. Open | Golf Channel
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so these native areas you see these large clumps of wire grass it is far more dense than it was in 2014 so there will be quite a few anxious Walks On Wayward drives bottom line if you stray you at some point will pay and there are I love this 75 varieties of native grasses cataloged here they include sounds like an international Apothecary Chinese Forget Me Not Morning Glory sassafras Virginia creeper um and that brings us to uh Johnson Wagner who’s out at 14 and I’m I’m wondering did you order Wags The Wild Cosmos sensation mix last night as you bellied up uh to the to the bar how are you Johnson I I I did not rich I’m great it’s a beautiful evening out here at Pinehurst maintenance has just come through can’t describe how much respect I have for the amount of volunteer maintenance staff out here doing the work they do every night to get this place looking as good as it does I’m left on 14 here I got a little greedy and I took this bunker on and I covered it it’s only about 325 yards off the te so very realistic for where I might be and it’s pretty thin over here but there’s definitely some of these big Wire Grass bushes I I’m not going to choose to hit a ball out of here because I don’t want to destroy the bush for players that may hit it here and also it would be just a pitch out but I’ve found a nice pretty decent livee that’s given me the hope that I can get this somewhere near the front of of the green but if when you look at this LIE there’s a little tough to grasp back here so I’m going to have to come down really steep on that to catch it clean and the other thing about this stance is and this is what we’re going to see a lot of pretty decent lies but where I want my feet to be for this shot I’m standing right on top of this bush right here and for this shot I need to be steep so I’m going to set up a little bit differently and and basically in an uncomfortable position all right we’re on 14 probably the most intimidating hole location on this golf course is back right maybe it’s going to be there tomorrow maybe it won’t I’m hopeful that it is I’m 155 yds to the hole I’ve got my pitching wedge which goes about 135 and I’m just basically trying to put this front left of the green and leave it in the best possible spot if it comes out thin and chases towards the middle of the green great but I’ve got this uncomfortable stance just going to kind of try to get it up there Chase it to the front oh here goes skipped out of the bun sweet we’re going to lose Paulie again well that tough the grass right behind it it was hard it my my club went down into it and it just bounced it right into the back of the ball uh well at least I didn’t make a pitch mark Paul you are TV go Johnson there’s no doubt about that every single time you deliver thank you even when we gave you a long shot you delivered um first of all I wouldn’t worry too much about destroying those Wire Grass bushes uh you’ve got a spare one on top of your lip there that you can replace it with thank you Paul just give us a percentage Johnson um give us a percentage the chances when you go into that native area I mean would you talk that the players might have a 30% chance of getting on the Green from in there 40% I mean what kind of I know they they’ve planted nearly 200,000 bushes I believe you know what kind of uh what kind of percentage are you looking at there I I I think it depends on the hole and how long your Club selection is if you’re on the fourth hole and you’re in the in the in the wire grass on the left side you’ve got a less than 10% chance but if you’re on 13 we saw Max hom today in our Walkin talk he was he hit driver was 69 yards out and he hit it up there to about 10t so with a wedge in play I would put it more like 80% but with anything over a seven or eight iron I think it’s pretty low right all right so this is where I was trying to hit it I was trying to hit it just short here you can see I’ve got my cup up there on the back right and for me this is a putting situation right here it it’s it it’s a putter situation but I’m going to hit two I’m going to chip one with a nine iron and when it’s been fairly well documented my struggles with chipping but what I like to do when I’m struggling with chipping i instead of having my hand hands low I like to have my hands high like this dig the toe into the ground and hit a little bump and run with my putter grip and putter stroke please sit please sit I like that you’re removing the heel from the potential contact John and and you’re familiar with Bermuda I know a lot of people that are unfamiliar with Bermuda still use that technique C A that’s going to be a much harder shot from down there but I do like the technique that’s why I was I was planning on going there anyway but I was hoping to chip it close but that’s what this is what this golf course does to you if you get too aggressive you end up in these spots all right so putter here is the play and after seeing that one as fast now granted they did just roll these greens okay so uh they’re fast I don’t know if you’ve heard but now the putter is the play everybody’s been talking about putting it got a little bit tentative with that one but I’d rather be there than where I’m about to go next and by the way Paul and Paige Rich I’ve played a lot of competitive rounds of golf out here north south Juniors north south AMS I love this place this back ride hole location I’ve never hit it over the green here in all my rounds and I’m going to show you why because it is absolutely brutal at least it stayed in the Fairway I think it’s important to remind everybody Johnson I think it’s important to remind everybody that one year you came second on Strokes gained around the greens on tour thank you Paul I must have made a lot of but this is this is also important though because there’s a psychological aspect to watching the ball disappear off the edge and it’s so easy to see how that can happen and even tiger talked about the ping ponging back and forth um it’s incredibly difficult to have that confidence going in and I can see why you were tentative on your second putt because you don’t want to end up here I I I I don’t want to end up here and uh tiger and and Max H have been talking about potentially using a four iron or a five iron I don’t think this plays in this situation because I’ve got this lip of of of kind of flatness that I want to get it over so I’m thinking it’s more of maybe a seven iron or eight iron shot from down here and and just try to like really from here you just don’t want it to come back down to your feet it’s too far to putt I’m certainly not going to take out a lob wedge and try to flop it from here so I’m going to bump an eight iron kind of the way I tried to play that nine iron from the front Tiger’s been talking and Max has been talking about shutting the face down a little bit and hitting a little sort of running draw so we’ll see if I can’t get one on the green oh oh please stay that’s all I got I’m not hitting that other one I’m I’m done for the night that ball is going to go straight in my pocket Johnson um on the eve of round number one just curious where do you think the winning score will end up and which player or players do you like uh obviously can we just throw Scotty Sheffer out obviously I love Scotty Sheffer he’s amazing um I really like col morawa his game is is really trending in the right direction I think Max hom his love affair with this golf course the way he played at the Masters he legitimately had a chance to win until the 12th hole I like those guys a lot I think winning score I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody touched double digits under par at some time but I think the winning score is going to be five under with three total players under par for the week and why do you say that you know with some of the more dire predictions some thoughts that it could Carnage out there why do you think they’ll get to five six maybe 800 par I I I I think that if you when you look at a guy like Scotty sheffler he drives it better than anybody in the world I know brandle did his thing about a distance from the edge of center of the Fairway Scotty hits it so straight and hits his irons so precisely that I think he’s going to have the ability to go out and put two maybe three really solid rounds together and I’m talking 68 69 67 something like like that but this golf course it is so hard to put four rounds in a row together and that’s why I think it’s going to come back down to fiveish and not stay in that eight range Johnson you talked a lot about the green complexes and everybody has this week and on tour you get I I guess average greens hit in regulation would be 14 for the season um you know how many greens in regulation do you think these guys are going to be hitting because of the complexity uh of of of these greens well I I think 12 would be a really nice number I think we’ll see some guys touch 14 or 15 for one day but in talking with Harry higs we had a walk and talk earlier today he said there’s a lot of hole locations out here and you’re out of position that you would try to intentionally miss the Green in the right spot and I think here on 14’s a perfect example you do not get over the back of this green the front left is some of the flattest Fairway on the golf course so I think Green’s hit could be a misleading stat obviously it would be nice to hit a lot but you could have a guy hit 10 or 11 but hit another five or six in the perfect spot to get up and down yeah that’s an interesting point uh Johnson great work go get yourself one of those wild Cosmos Sensations whatever whatever that is go go have yourself a time uh we loved it the last three days we’ll see you tomorrow