U.S. Open 2026: Emiliano Grillo, who 'hated' his time here in 2018, shines at Shinnecock

· Yahoo Sports

Sure, there have been struggles for Emiliano Grillo at the 2026 U.S. Open, like his second hole of the tournament on Thursday, when he failed to get out of a bunker and took a double bogey.

Visit grenadier.co.za for more information.

But Grillo, as is his wont, kept his composure and didn't panic as Shinnecock Hills started to throw more substantial weather at players. In fact, Grillo had a heck of a day on Saturday, when he pieced together four straight birdies at the end of the front nine.

How does that compare to Grillo's last start at Shinnecock, back at the 2018 U.S. Open, when he missed the cut by a single stroke? Let's just say the 33-year-old Argentinian doesn't like looking back.

"It was a blur," he said of the 2018 event. "I'm not going to go there. I hated every minute of it. It was dry. It was windy. I hated every minute of it. Let's not go there."

Grillo, who has a pair of PGA Tour victories under his belt, is currently 123rd in the FedEx Cup standings, meaning he's well outside the new cut of 100 cards for full-time Tour players. But on Saturday, he managed the wind as well as anyone, finishing the day with a 3-under 67 to get to even for the tournament. He expected the wind to stick around for a bit, but even he was surprised by its persistence.

"I looked at the weather this morning. I thought we were going to get nine very windy and then nine not so windy, but it just kept going up. It never slowed down," he said. "I played solid all day. Four birdies on the front nine. Obviously, when you stand on the 10th tee with 4-under par in the U.S. Open, you're just rushing to get it done and finish it.

"Great bogey there on 10 and great save on 11. Kind of had to slow down a little bit and kind of had to be patient and was able to do so. 3-under par or any under par in a U.S. Open, you'd always take it."

A big weekend could mean big things for Grillo, who had a top-20 finish last year at this event at Oakmont, but has missed the cut in six of his last 10 majors. When asked about his futile performances on the game's biggest stages of late, Grillo simply chalked them up to the strength of field.

"It's hard, man. Like everybody is grinding so much. Everybody is practicing so much," he said. "It's hard to say that this is a weak field compared to week in, week out, just because of the level that, when you go on the PGA Tour, you have 120, 150 guys, and then when you've got everybody in the same week, you've got to beat guys like Scottie Scheffler. We haven't seen somebody play that good in a long time.

"It's hard to beat these guys. It's not like I haven't played well or maybe I wasn't -- I've been in contention a few majors here and there, but it's just hard golf courses, hard setups. You have to be patient. You have to be on top of your game. Then you have to get lucky, get lucky with the draw. There's a lot of things out there that need to be together in order to beat these guys that are really, really good at it."

"I don't think I'm that bad, but I feel like I need to play really good to compete with these guys out here."

Tim Schmitt is the managing editor of Golfweek.

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Emiliano Grillo shoots 67 at Shinnecock, where he 'hated' 2018 experience

Read full story at source