USGA

U.S. Open Returns to Shinnecock
Hills Golf Club in 2004

FAR HILLS, N.J. - Nine years after holding its most recent U.S. Open in 1995, Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton, N.Y., has been selected to host the 2004 U.S. Open, the United States Golf Association has announced.

The Championship will be held from June 17-20. The 2004 Open will be the eighth USGA championship and the fourth Open to be held at Shinnecock.

James Foulis won the second Open ever played, and the first at Shinnecock, in 1896. Raymond Floyd finished at 1-under-par 279 to win in 1986. And in the 1995 Open, Corey Pavin finished the 6,944-yard, par 70 course at even par (280) and edged Greg Norman by two strokes.

H.J. Wingham won the U.S. Amateur here in 1896, a day earlier than that year's Open. Later, in 1900, Frances Griscom beat Margaret Curtis to claim the U.S. Women's Amateur at Shinnecock.

In more recent times, Ray Palmer won the 1967 USGA Senior Amateur at Shinnecock, and a U.S. team, featuring NCAA champion Scott Simpson, won the 1977 Walker Cup Match versus Great Britain and Ireland, 16-8.

"We are delighted to welcome our national championship back to Shinnecock Hills Golf Club," said Elliott Vose, the club's president. "We are proud to have been host to three previous U.S. Opens, and we are looking forward to another exciting championship." A traditional links-style golf course with tall fescue grasses lining its narrow fairways, Shinnecock Hills is an historic golf club, having been one of the five founding clubs of the USGA in 1894. The Shinnecock clubhouse is also famous as the oldest in the United States and designed by notable architect Stanford White.

William Davis was the architect for the first 12 holes at Shinnecock, but Willie Dunn Jr., who finished the original 18-hole layout in 1894, gets a large portion of the credit. Charles MacDonald (1916) and William Flynn (1929) later revised the layout substantially.

Prior to 2004, the U.S. Open is scheduled from June 15-18, 2000, at Pebble Beach (Calif.) Golf Links; from June 14-17, 2001, at Southern Hills (Okla.) Country Club; from June 13-16, 2002, at Bethpage (N.Y.) State Park; and from June 12-15, 2003, at Olympia Fields (Ill.) Country Club. For more information, contact the USGA Championship Department at (908) 234-2300.