Wyndham Clark called his Saturday round “flat” as he played in front of near-empty galleries. Kevin Kisner could have told you why. He learned that the hard way at the 2018 U.S. Open, sitting on his staff bag on the side of a highway, waiting for traffic to start moving.

“I played late on Friday after shooting a terrible score on Thursday, so it was pretty clear I wasn’t going to make the cut. My wife was there with me and had gone to pick up the kids from daycare. She was trying to time it so she could pick me up right when I finished because she knew I’d be ready to leave as soon as I was done. I got back to my locker, turned my phone on, and called her,” he said at the Fore Play Podcast.

“I said, ‘Hey, I’m ready to go.’ She said, ‘Honey, I’d like to tell you that I’m here, but I’ve been trying to get to you for an hour, and I haven’t moved more than 200 feet. I’m stuck on the highway by the course. We’re just not moving.’ I said, ‘All right, great. That sounds great.’ So I packed up all my stuff, carried my staff bag and gear down the hill, and along the gravel road the players use to enter the course. Then I went down to the highway, sat on my staff bag on the side of the road, and waited for my wife to arrive about an hour later. I’m done with this U.S. Open, and I’m just not going to be a part of this anymore,” the NBC analyst recalled thinking.

Kevin Kisner had carded a 77 in Round 1 and a 75 in Round 2, finishing at +12 for the week. Notably, Tiger Woods raised the same concern that same week. As reported by Golf Digest, Woods said, “There are a few guys so far this week who have said it’s taken them from the hotel 2.5 to 3 hours, and there’s a good chance that someone might miss their time.”

Now in 2026, the 126th U.S. Open is back at Shinnecock, and the roads are still a mess. There is just one main road in and out of the South Fork of Long Island, and it creates a massive bottleneck along Sunrise Highway, leading to heavy traffic.

Around 25k fans were expected on Friday, per News 12, after roughly 20,000 attended on Thursday. But tickets have not sold out for a single round.

The USGA made approximately 21,000 available per day, with a peak capacity of under 30,000, including staff and volunteers. At Pinehurst and Oakmont in 2024 and 2025, crowds hit 40,000 on peak days and crossed 200,000 total both years. Shinnecock is nowhere near that. Wyndham Clark, playing in the final pairing with a 3:45 p.m. tee time on Saturday, finished in near-empty conditions.

“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,” Clark said.

And it isn’t like the USGA hasn’t tried to resolve the traffic situation.

As per Golf Digest, a “Contra-Flow” lane on Route 27 was set up this year, a three-mile stretch open from 5 to 10 a.m. for USGA-pass vehicles only. Players, buses, and hotel shuttles all got access. Text reminders went out for three straight days.

“Everybody has been made very aware of the issues here,” a USGA official said. “If something happened, we can’t say we didn’t warn them.”

But as the Mirror reported, a Thursday shuttle from Riverhead billed as 45 minutes took over an hour and fifteen. Eight years after Kevin Kisner sat on his bag by the highway, Shinnecock still has not figured out how to move people.

And it’s not just the traffic and smaller gallery that make life difficult at Shinnecock this 126th time around.

Fog, wind, and an unpredictable 126th U.S. Open

The 2026 U.S. Open faced challenges even before the first tee shot. Thick fog shrouded Shinnecock Hills on Thursday morning, pushing back the start by two hours. Finally underway, the competitors wrestled with strong winds and bright sunshine in rounds two and three.

Sunday’s final round is not expected to be much calmer. AccuWeather is predicting temperatures to start at 57 degrees in the morning and climb to 78 degrees in the afternoon with winds from 8 to 16 mph and gusts up to 25 mph. There’s a 25% chance of rain, and nobody is ruling that out at Shinnecock.

The wind has already created some genuinely bizarre moments. During R3, Jordan Spieth hit his approach on hole one and broke into a jog toward his ball, visibly saying, “PLEASE no gusts, just let me mark it.”

That is Shinnecock. The course does not need bad luck to find you. Between the traffic getting in and the wind once you arrive, the place has a way of making a hard week even harder.