Shinnecock Hills 7th will be a real test

The hole that has got all the players talking in the build-up to this week's U.S. Open is the par-three seventh at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club.

Although only 189 yards off the back tee, the renowned "Redan Hole" plays into the prevailing wind and has a daunting green in the shape of an upturned saucer that is difficult to hold.

This week the hole is more exposed than it was when Shinnecock hosted the U.S. Opens of 1986 and 1995 and most tee shots here roll to the back left of a green that slopes from right to left.

"It's going to be tough to hit that green, I can tell you," twice former champion Ernie Els told reporters earlier this week. "You'll be hitting seven, eight-iron in there and I just don't see too many balls staying on that green.

"The speed of these greens and the kind of slope that we have on that green, it's just not going to happen."

Spaniard Sergio Garcia, winner of the Buick Classic on Sunday, agrees.

"It's one of those holes where you've got to realise you're probably going to have to get up and down from the left bunker, or one of those places, to make par," he said.

"You have to hit an absolutely perfect shot to get it on that green."

The seventh has been lengthened by one yard since the 1995 Open but the significant change is that the natural protection from behind the green and around the tee has been removed.

Fully exposed now to the fickle winds that sweep across Shinnecock, the hole has become a lot more difficult.

"Since we have cut the trees down and got rid of the privet hedge, the golfer is hit in the face by the wind and really feels it," Mark Michaud, course superintendent at Shinnecock Hills, told a news conference on Wednesday.

"He is intimidated by it on the tee and then the flagstick is bent over about halfway and the flag is flapping."

At the previous two U.S. Opens staged at Shinnecock, the par-three seventh ranked as the ninth hardest hole on the course with a stroke average of 3.286 in 1986 and 3.210 in 1995.

This week, the stroke average is likely to be higher.