Play Like It's the U.S. Open: How SkyTrak Lie Penalties Make Your Practice Feel Like Shinnecock Hills

The world's best players are at Shinnecock Hills for the 2026 U.S. Open — one of the most demanding tests in golf. Firm fescue fairways, tight lies around elevated greens, relentless Atlantic wind, and micro-contours that can turn a perfect drive into an awkward stance. It's set up to provide the most punishing test the USGA can give.

But you don't have to be at Shinnecock to feel it. With SkyTrak's Lie Penalties feature, you can dial your simulator practice up to major-level difficulty and start training for the kinds of shots the U.S. Open demands IRL.

What Makes Shinnecock So Unforgiving?

Before we get into the settings, it helps to understand why Shinnecock is such a beast.

Built on the natural terrain of Long Island's South Fork, Shinnecock plays as a pure links  — par 70 at 7,434 yards — where concrete-firm fairways send the ball running, greens are pitched up above the surrounds, and the wind (typically 15+ mph from the south-southwest) turns every club selection into a negotiation. The USGA has widened the fairways for 2026, with some stretching nearly 50 yards across, but don't mistake that for generosity. The ball will still bounce and run off these greens. It will still find those subtle slope changes in the fairway that leave uneven lies. And the short grass surrounds  mean an approach shot that misses the putting surface can easily run 20, 30, even 50 yards away.

Shinnecock is the U.S. Open at its most elemental: ball-striking precision, creative shot-making, and the ability to execute from imperfect lies.

What Are Lie Penalties?

Lie Penalties is a setting in SkyTrak's Course Play and Course Play Practice modes that adjusts the power and spin of your simulated shots based on the lie condition your ball is in. When you're in the rough or in a bunker, the simulation accounts for it — reducing your ability to deliver clean contact and affecting ball flight accordingly.

Until this feature existed, hitting from the rough on a simulator felt essentially the same as hitting from the fairway. Your real-world swing was measured accurately, but the lie itself carried no penalty. Lie Penalties closes that gap, making off-fairway positions genuinely costlier and forcing you to think strategically about shot selection, just like you would on a real course.

To enable it, head into your Course Play or Course Play Practice setup and toggle Lie Penalties on. That's it. From there, every position your ball ends up in will factor into the shot result — not just your swing.

How to Use It for U.S. Open-Style Practice

Here's how to get the most out of Lie Penalties as you watch (or imagine playing in) this week's championship at Shinnecock.

Turn it on and stop giving yourself perfect lies. This sounds obvious, but the instinct on a simulator is to replay shots from ideal positions. With Lie Penalties enabled, resist the urge. Play the lie you've got. That's U.S. Open golf.

Use Course Play Practice to set up specific situations. One of the most powerful tools in the 5.2 update is Course Play Practice, which lets you drop your ball anywhere on a course and practice that specific shot as many times as you want. Use it to simulate the kinds of lies Shinnecock will produce — slightly above or below your feet from a tight fairway, a pitch from short grass to an elevated green with a runoff behind it, or a half-buried lie in a deep pot bunker. Those are the shots separating the leaderboard from the cut line in Southampton this week.

Simulate the bump-and-run. One of the defining shots at Shinnecock is the intentional run-up — a low, tumbling approach that uses the firm ground to feed the ball onto the green rather than flying it all the way. With Lie Penalties on, practicing your trajectory control becomes consequential. A ball that catches rough going in reacts differently than one from the fairway. 

Play a round and keep score honestly. The competitive dimension is where Lie Penalties really turn up the heat. Load up a round in Course Play with the setting active and commit to every shot, every lie. No mulligans, no repositioning. This is the closest simulator golf gets to the real stakes of hitting a punch-out from a buried lie on a par-4 with a two-shot lead.

Why This Matters Beyond the U.S. Open

Even when Shinnecock isn't in the news cycle, Lie Penalties make you a better golfer because you stop ingraining habits built on artificial perfection. Real golf almost never gives you a clean, flat lie with the ball sitting up perfectly. The rough grabs your hosel. A downhill stance costs you loft and launch. A tight lie demands a shallower angle of attack than you think.

When your simulator practice finally accounts for those variables, the gap between your indoor game and your on-course game starts to close. Your decision-making sharpens. Your shot repertoire expands. You start thinking about where to miss, not just where to aim.

That's the game Shinnecock demands of the world's best players this week. With SkyTrak Lie Penalties, it's the game you can start demanding of yourself.

Ready to level up your practice? Make sure you're running the latest SkyTrak software to access Lie Penalties in Course Play and Course Play Practice. Download the update at skytrakgolf.com/pages/downloads and start playing golf the hard way.