SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — Yes, Mike Whan has noticed.
Arriving the other day to find about 500 fans walking toward Shinnecock Hills’ first hole, the USGA CEO thought to himself, “At Oakmont, there would’ve been 15,000 people waiting at the rope for us to drop it.” Watching late-day play on a perfectly sun-painted Friday afternoon, he looked across a horizon of empty grandstands and reminded himself that such sights come with the territory.
This is the 2026 U.S. Open at Shinnecock: 90 miles east of Times Square, but seemingly so far from the rest of the world. The South Fork of eastern Long Island isn’t exactly conducive to mass visitors. The Hamptons are exclusive for a reason.
Yet it’s here this week that our national championship is being played for the sixth time in course history. The first: 1896. The last: 2018. The USGA keeps coming back because, how can it not? Few other parcels of land in this country present such a championship test. Seeing Shinnecock, it’s hard to imagine its past life as 4,000 acres of sandy soil, blueberry bushes and underbrush. It feels more like a sliver of land that somehow unhitched from the Scottish coast, floated across the Atlantic like an old steamer, and latched onto America’s eastern seaboard.
So the USGA returns, again and again.
Even as everything else changes.
Even if modern realities suggest this doesn’t make much sense.
“We’re not sitting around and stressing about being here and what that means,” Whan told The Athletic on Saturday morning, sitting for a conversation as the tournament’s third round played out. “In our decision process, we put cathedrals at No. 1. Where do we want to play the U.S. Open? Operations and revenues are not at the top of the list. You could argue that’s a terrible way to think, but that’s what separates us from a (PGA) Tour stop.”
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Leaving money on the table? Not optimizing every cent out of every square foot? Whan can sound as if he’s not on speaking terms with reality. Isn’t the modern sporting landscape supposed to be about money grabs and venture capital knee-bending and entertainment districts built alongside new stadium venues? This is a world where the Chicago Bears are threatening to move to Hammond, Ind. This is a world where FIFA is asking for thousands of dollars for even the most banal of World Cup matchups. This is a golf world where the PGA of America charges $750 for Ryder Cup tickets, and the PGA Tour has taken in $1.5 billion in private equity funding.
But then there’s the USGA.
This week at Shinnecock required a decision to sell 25 percent fewer tickets than last year at Oakmont Country Club in suburban Pittsburgh while simultaneously raising infrastructure and logistical costs. It required asking fans to travel hours upon hours on rails and roads. It required taking a resulting hit in ticket sales. According to numbers provided to The Athletic on Saturday, while the USGA made 30,000 tickets available for tournament days, only 21,000 made it through the gates Thursday, followed by 27,000 on Friday. Practice rounds drew about 10,000 per day.
Whan’s response? Two shoulders, up.
“There was no way there was ever going to be more than 155,000 (total) here this week,” he said. “I don’t know what we had at Oakmont, but I’ll bet you it was closer to 215,000. Pinehurst (in 2024) was like 250,000. But that’s the tradeoff. Because you have a Pinehurst and an Oakmont, I feel like you can do a Merion, a Riviera, or this.
“If we lived on a diet of Pebble (Beach) and Pinehurst and Oakland Hills, would we be much better off financially? One hundred percent. But I’m not sure the championship would be better.”
Still, the numbers are jarring.
Empty grandstands have awaited players at this U.S. Open. (Mike Mulholland / Getty Images)
Asked Saturday how much the USGA is leaving on the table by playing its biggest event — the event responsible for producing the bulk of the revenue for the organization and how it funds every other championship from the U.S. Senior Open to the U.S. Adaptive Open to the U.S. Girls’ Junior Amateur — Whan offered an answer that’d make other CEOs spit.
“Tens of millions of dollars,” he replied.
The venues are worth it. The quality of the championship is worth it. The USGA’s long-term schedule mixes stops like Shinnecock this year with a big-ticket Pebble Beach next year, small-scale Winged Foot and Merion in 2028 and 2030, and sprawling landscapes like Pinehurst and Oakmont in 2029 and 2033. Small crowds will watch at Riviera in 2031. Enormous galleries will line Oakland Hills in 2034.
Something so rare is noteworthy.
Even if it doesn’t always get rewarded.
This week’s scaled-down national open has been put up against all imaginable shadows.
No event on earth consumes more oxygen and attention than the FIFA World Cup, let alone a World Cup held on domestic soil, including stadium sites 100 miles away in East Rutherford, N.J., three hours away in Philadelphia and five hours away in Boston. On Friday, in the heart of the U.S. Open’s primary TV window, the U.S. men’s national team played Australia in a match few viewers clicked away from. It was hard to tell from here, but it sure didn’t seem like the general public was clamoring to check in on tournament leader Wyndham Clark.
And that is as if there were any oxygen or attention even available after what’s already occurred in these parts. No one has ever enjoyed a hangover like New York in the aftermath of an NBA title. Thursday’s opening round at Shinnecock unfolded while the Knicks’ championship parade traveled 17 blocks through Lower Manhattan to City Hall. Millions lined the streets, hanging from street poles and perched atop scaffolding. Over at Shinnecock, empty grandstands greeted the likes of Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy.
Those who’ve made it out to Shinnecock have gotten the golf that they came for, but, for the most part, arrived later and left earlier. On Saturday afternoon, as tournament leaders played in the quiet of a clearing course and a low-slung sun, train whistles from the Long Island Railroad echoed clear across the land, offering reminders for the few who remained that their ride was leaving.
“It was kind of unfortunate that we’re finishing in the dark and people weren’t really out there because there were some obviously key, big moments, and it did kind of get a little flat, so yeah, unfortunately,” Clark said.
“Hopefully tomorrow there’s a bunch of fans and stuff.”
Saturday at Shinnecock ended with another reminder that there’s a price to pay to play somewhere so serene.
As Whan put it, “You gotta really want it if you want to get out here.”
