Some players that have taken practice rounds at Shinnecock are saying the wind will be the "X-factor", while the rough has played spotty at times. The last player to win the Open at Shinnecock, Corey Pavin, won by shooting an even par 280. Pavin believes scores on the course could "be decent" if the winds remain calm, but he also said that winds generally blow at 15-20 miles per hour from any direction.
Bondi reports that the members of the Shinnecock Nation, once closely associated with the course, now have little affiliation with it at all. Some of the tribe members helped lay the grass on the course, while others were employed at Shinnecock in 1986 and 1995, the last two times the U.S. Open was there. During those years and until 1999, Peter Smith, a Shinnecock, was the course superintendent who is in charge of the maintenance, operation and management of a golf course. Since 1999, the tribal chairman Lance Gumbs feels there "is no relationship with the course anymore."
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