Planning for a Slightly Scaled-Down 2026 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills Is Underway

As the world’s best golfers lowered their shoulders against the rains of Northern Ireland for the opening rounds of the 153rd Open Championship last week, the organizers of the American counterpart arrived in Southampton to begin the planning for next year’s U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club.

It will be the sixth time the U.S. Open has been held at Shinnecock Hills, and next year’s version will have a substantially different look and feel from the last time around that will be immediately noticeable to fans — both those at the course and watching on television — and the players themselves.

The course this time will be — well, recognizable.

For the 2026 event, the Shinnecock membership has asked the USGA to substantially reduce the number of large hospitality and concessions tents that it erects on the interior of the course’s routing next spring. That would leave the hillside that most of the back nine holes play along, and large swaths of the flatter front nine’s open areas, mostly undisturbed.

The decision by the membership to demand the scaled-back build-out was one of both aesthetics and sensibility.

In 2018, some 350 white vinyl-sided tents — some the size of department stores — filled much of the usually mottled brown-green open spaces of fescue between the mowed fairways and greens.

Next year, that number will be cut by about a third, and the bulk of them will be restricted to the perimeters of the course itself and the fringes.

“We have substantially eliminated infrastructure on the golf course for 2026 — basically, the entire hospitality setup on the hill beside the 16th, the 15th, beside the 8th, there will be a few tents they have to have for NBC and some big sponsors, but otherwise we have given them the perimeter of the course left of [the 1st hole],” said Brett Pickett, the president of the club’s board of governors. “We’re trying to create a completely different experience, and at the heart of it is presenting the natural state of Shinnecock and let patrons and the players experience that the way you and I experience it.”

Last week, at the Open Championship, played at Royal Portrush Golf Club in Northern Ireland spectators stood amid the dunes as the competing players hacked out of the deep grass in the hollows between them. At the Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia, each spring, spectators wander among the sprawling course’s famed azaleas and towering pine trees, arrange folding chairs along the ropes surrounding the greens, and visit restrooms and concessions facilities that are secreted well out of view of cameras so that the course’s lush greenery, grand terrain and sloping greens are unsullied.

But at the U.S. Open, which concludes on Father’s Day each year, the host courses typically see an extensive construction of tents between the holes, many of them housing necessary logistics and concession facilities, but also sprawling private corporate tents and upscale hospitality clubs for patrons who purchase exclusive access.

In 2018, the highest point on the course had a gargantuan concession tent — basically, a big beer garden — called “Top of the Hill” that dominated the view shed across the property.

Much of that will not return for 2026.

“Back to 2004 and 2018, we had a pretty substantial build-out that we are dialing back for next year,” Eric Steimer, the director of the U.S. Open for the United States Golf Association, said last week as he prepared to begin the 11-month campaign to get Shinnecock ready for the tournament.

“What you won’t see this time is the chalet tents on 15, 16, 13, which was a pretty big build, and the Top of the Hill. It will be a very noticeable difference out on the golf course — much less white canvas and more focus on the beauty of Shinnecock.”

The changes will also have a substantial impact on the condition the golf club’s property is left in when the Open departs for Pebble Beach in 2027.

The fine fescue that fills the hillsides and hollows between Shinnecock’s fairways can take years to recover to the condition it was in before the tournament after having the tents sit atop it for more than two months.

“Every time they build a tent, they kill the grass beneath it. And that fescue is not like your backyard, where you just throw down some sod,” Pickett said. “Those starvation grasses have to grow down to find water before they can grow up again. It takes three years for the fescue to return to what it was.”

Pickett was the club’s president in 2018 as well, and he says the discussion of easing the impacts, aesthetic and horticultural on the course began soon after the conclusion of that year’s tournament. The club had already agreed to the 2026 return, and the club’s leadership and members — many of whom were new to the club since it had last been played there in 2004 — wanted to ensure that the event was improved upon for the next time.

“We sat down with the USGA, as true partners, for a conversation about how we can make sure that U.S. Opens at Shinnecock are sustainable in the future, for Shinnecock and for the Southampton community,” the club president said. “They have been tremendous partners, and when we said let’s have less build-out, fewer tickets, leave less of an imprint and have less traffic, and other not-so-great impacts on the surrounding community, they agreed.”

Among the strategies for easing the impacts on the recovery of the course to its usual state will be one that will be noticed — and probably enjoyed — by the players themselves.

The notorious rough that fringes Shinnecock’s fairways will be grown deeper — the signature punishing feature of all U.S. Opens — but it will not be grown into new areas to narrow fairways and present a more challenging target to the professionals. The rough will be deeper and the greens mowed tighter to make them roll at tabletop speeds, but otherwise the course will play, largely, as it can be played this summer.

“Looking back to 2018, we didn’t love all the intervention on the course that we would then have to roll back, and the leadership group at the USGA, I think, is comfortable playing the architecture of the golf course and let that dictate the course of the championship,” Pickett said. “It will be firm and fast, which is part of our national championship.”

Also part of that national championship: big crowds. An estimated 295,000 people walked through the gates of the 2025 U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club in June. At Shinnecock in 2018, Steimer said, the attendance was somewhere “north of 180,000” for the six days of ticketed access.

That, too, will be substantially scaled back for next year, the USGA says, with the memories of hundreds of staff and volunteers arriving hours late for shifts at the 2018 tournament, because shuttle buses carrying them to the course from parking areas were caught in long traffic jams on the first two days of the competition.

“We are taking a hard look at our attendance capacity to find a number that allows us to manage the experience both at the course and around it, from a transportation standpoint,” Steimer said. “We know the challenges that come with transportation when you have a major event in the Hamptons, and we’ll do our best to mitigate some of those challenges.”

In 2018, the USGA utilized Gabreski Airport as a major rally point for shuttling thousands of employees, volunteers, fans and others to the course each day. But Steimer said that the substantial new commercial development around Gabreski since then may mean the site cannot serve as a significant hub this time around.

Barely three weeks removed from the conclusion of the 2025 Open at Oakmont, Pennsylvania, he and other USGA staff were meeting with Suffolk County officials and the region to work on those foundational logistics last week.

The USGA will again temporarily resurrect the former train station at the Stony Brook Southampton college campus and build a pedestrian bridge over County Road 39 to connect it to the course. Steimer said that approximately 12,000 people arrived by train on the peak days in 2018, and Steimer said the USGA still sees the dedicated trains and regularly scheduled runs that coincide with tournament times as the best way for spectators to get to the event.

There will still be plenty of infrastructure sprouting on the Shinnecock grounds over the offseason. The 35,000-square-foot merchandise tent, built on Shinnecock’s short-course, “Mini Shinny,” will return. The tournament will have some premium hospitality tents like the “1895 Club” — air conditioning, all-day gourmet catering and prime viewing — and will introduce for the first time reserved grandstands, to which patrons can purchase reserved access to seating at prime viewing locations.

Tickets for the tournament are already on sale. Gallery access passes start at $456 on competition days; the 1895 Club, with a tour of the media center or television broadcast compound, is $4,349 on Saturday.

Volunteers have started signing up, too. The USGA needs about 1,800 to 2,000 volunteers on the property each day to steer crowds around the property and already has 3,700 on its list of volunteers for 2026, which Stemier called a great start.

As many challenges that the event presents, Steimer says, the USGA’s experience with the vent presents a solid framework from which wheels do not need to be reinvented.

“One of the great things about Shinnecock is that we’ve been here, and we have a blueprint that fits the model, and we have those past experiences to draw from and learn from,” he said. “We get tremendous support from the Shinnecock members and from the Southampton community to help us make it a special event, as always.”