The 126th U.S. Open takes place at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton, New York from June 18 to 21, 2026, with all rounds in the Eastern Daylight Time zone (UTC-4) and final-round featured groups beginning around 14:00 EDT on Sunday.
The U.S. Open exists to answer a single question: who is the best player in America this year? And the USGA’s method of answering that question is brutality. Fairways narrowed to 25 yards. Rough grown to four inches of thick fescue. Greens dried to the edge of unplayable. Pin positions tucked behind bunkers that haven’t been raked since Thursday. The U.S. Open does not want birdies. It wants survival. And Shinnecock Hills, set on the windswept eastern tip of Long Island where the terrain looks more like Scotland than the Hamptons, is the perfect instrument for that philosophy.
Shinnecock is one of the five founding member clubs of the United States Golf Association, established in 1891. The William Flynn design plays to par 70 at 7,067 yards, but the yardage understates the difficulty. The course sits on elevated terrain exposed to winds off the Atlantic Ocean and Peconic Bay. The fescue rough is not just thick; it grabs the hosel of the club and twists the face, turning a lie six feet off the fairway into a prayer. The greens are small by modern standards, crowned and tilted into the natural landforms, meaning approach shots must not only find the putting surface but land on the correct section. When the wind picks up and the surfaces firm out, even the world’s best struggle to break par. Pars feel earned here. Birdies feel stolen.
The 2018 U.S. Open at Shinnecock produced both brilliance and controversy. Brooks Koepka won his second consecutive U.S. Open, the first player to achieve back-to-back victories since Curtis Strange in 1988 and 1989. But the USGA lost control of the 7th green on Saturday, with the putting surface drying out to the point where balls would not stop rolling. Phil Mickelson, in frustration, swatted a moving ball on that green, accepting a two-stroke penalty rather than watching it roll off the surface entirely. The moment became one of the most discussed incidents in U.S. Open history. Before that, Raymond Floyd won here in 1986 at age 43, Corey Pavin hit a legendary 4-wood to the 72nd green to win in 1995, and Retief Goosen survived a chaotic final day in 2004.
Shinnecock rewards golf intelligence above all else. Club selection, trajectory control, the ability to manage a scorecard when the course is fighting back on every hole. It is not a bomber’s paradise. Collin Morikawa, Matt Fitzpatrick, and Patrick Cantlay, players built on precision rather than power, may find this setup favors their strengths. But Scottie Scheffler, who combines elite ball-striking with the patience to grind through difficult conditions, remains the player to beat.
For European fans, EDT timing places Sunday’s climax in the evening. A 14:00 EDT tee time is 19:00 in London, 20:00 in Paris and Berlin. The closing holes land between 22:00 and midnight CET, a compelling late-evening watch. For Japanese fans, 14:00 EDT is 03:00 Monday morning in Tokyo. Australian viewers face a 04:00 AEST start. For American fans on the West Coast, the 14:00 EDT start is 11:00 PDT, an ideal late-morning slot. Fans in the Midwest get a 13:00 CDT start, perfect for Sunday afternoon viewing.
For more on the venue, see our Shinnecock Hills guide. To check the current local time at the course, see New York time or browse all United States time zones.