Hoping to find Olympic fairways,
U.S. Open field turned to 2-irons
els, Mickelson, watson and woods lead a starry list of coMpetitors who had 2-irons in
their bags for the national open. soMe versions were old-school, soMe very techy
Prior to the 1974 U.S. Open at Winged Foot, Hale Irwin said, “The winner
this week will wear out the
face of his 2-iron.” And it
was true. Irwin, who ended
up winning the event, used
the club no fewer than a
dozen times that week,
including on the 72nd hole.
At this year’s U.S. Open,
2-irons also received a
workout, except this time
usage was more off the tee
than on shots into greens.
It was said so often at
Olympic Club that you
almost thought it was part
of the course’s proper name:
“You have to keep the ball in
the fairway.” That thinking
led to the return, at least for
one week, of the 2-iron.
Even before players
arrived in San Francisco,
they were thinking about
adding a low-lofted iron
as a valuable tool to solve
Olympic’s firm, sloping
fairways. In preparation,
Phil Mickelson and Ernie
Els worked with a prototype Callaway utility iron weeks
in advance of the U.S. Open.
“I’m not going to take the driver out of my bag entirely like
I tried at one Open [at Torrey Pines in 2008],” said Mickel-
son of his strategy for Olympic, before adding, “There are a
That thinking was shared by many players at the Open
(although notably not by champion Webb Simpson,
who started his iron set at the 4-iron). Asked about the
they’re similar in that they
forced a lot of players … to
play from similar spots in
the fairway. Length isn’t
really much of an issue
here. Whether you hit
driver off the tee, 3-wood
off the tee or 2-iron off the
tee, we’re all trying to put
the ball in similar spots.”
For Bubba Watson that
meant pulling his 4-wood
and 3-iron and adding
a 21-degree hybrid and
2-iron. “You’ve got No. 5
where I hit 2-iron off that
tee … You can’t hit driver—
you can, I guess, but to be
smart you can’t hit driver
on some of these holes,”
said Watson.
deuces were (sometimes) wild
Although many players opted for 2-irons to help keep the ball in play off
the tee, some, such as Watson, still had trouble finding fairways.
