U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP 2026

June 20, 2026

Emiliano Grillo

Shinnecock Hills Golf Club

Flash Interview

THE MODERATOR: We're here with Emiliano Grillo, 3-under 67. In those conditions just a terrific round of golf. Can you talk us through your round out there.

EMILIANO GRILLO: Yeah, obviously very windy. 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.

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.

Q. What did you find on the back half of that back nine there, four birdies in a row? Was it something with your swing? What did you find?

EMILIANO GRILLO: No. I mean, probably the shot of the year on 6. Hit it to like two feet. Then a great shot on 7 to 12 feet up the hill, pretty much straight. I couldn't ask for a better position to be putting from.

Great putt on 8, and then a solid hole on 9 with a very difficult putt. It was like I want to say 30, 33 feet, going hard right to left with the wind from the left. I would have been very happy with a 4, and I took a 3.

I'm more proud of the way I made a 5 on 10 and a 3 on 11.

Q. As of now, you're the one person to kind of conquer these conditions so far. When you started, were you aware of some of the numbers that were going on in the groups ahead of you, and how much did you maybe rely on that to --

EMILIANO GRILLO: Yeah, obviously there's a couple TVs in the locker room. Dining there's like six TVs; it's hard to miss it. You want to be aware of what's going on and how it's playing to kind of have an idea of what's happening out there.

Obviously when you see the first guy out there makes an 8, then the second guy out there almost -- Chris Gotterup had to back up three, four times on the first green. His ball moved -- it was marked, but his ball moved and it went like a good 12, 15 feet before they grabbed it. Some of the hole locations -- hole location on 2 with the wind off the left, you kind of know what you're going to find out there, and it's kind of nice seeing that on TV before going out. That always helps.

Q. When you've got a short iron and there's a lot of wind coming from one direction, when do you decide to ride the wind, and when do you decide to hit a shot back into it, like a draw against a left-to-right wind?

EMILIANO GRILLO: Yeah, I guess that's -- to me that's hole dependent and distance dependent. If it's a short club like a 9-iron, pitching wedge and you need to draw it to hit it close, then you'll try it. But the shot I hit on 6 today was a bit suicidal, I would say, because I'm hitting a 4-iron with a left pin, and I tried to hit a draw a little bit just to hold the wind a little bit, and it worked out perfectly.

But it's not the ideal situation. But I was just trying to get a bit more distance out of it just to be middle of the green and be not so far from the pin on my putt, and it worked out perfectly.

Like 2, for example, 2, the wind is very hard off the left and the wind is still left to right, so you have to try to hit a draw just not to go too far right and maybe hit a bunker shot and make a 3. I try to avoid it at all costs. But in a U.S. Open or maybe the Open Championship, you have to try those shots. You have to.

Q. What do you feel like has held you back in the past at U.S. Opens and majors, and how have you worked to get your game in a position where you could ultimately win one of these?

EMILIANO GRILLO: I mean, it's hard, man. Like everybody is grinding so much. Everybody is practicing so much. Everybody out here -- 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 needs 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.

Q. What's your best guess on where you'll be on the leaderboard once play is over tonight?

EMILIANO GRILLO: Well, I don't know. The wind is supposed to die down a little bit.

Q. You're T11 right now.

EMILIANO GRILLO: What time is it?

Q. It's 3:30.

EMILIANO GRILLO: Yeah, the guys in the last group haven't teed off yet. According to the weather that I saw, they could get very little wind in the last six holes.

I don't know. Seventh? That's my guess. That's a good guess, I feel like.

Q. What do you remember about here in 2018?

EMILIANO GRILLO: Nothing. It was a blur. 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.