You can shorten up the less well-positioned one, preferably to a lateral branchlet which faces outward. Seems like an issue, and maybe will be, but for the most part, pine-family members are pretty good at sorting this sort of thing out. But you won't hurt it by doing as I described. Up at my tree plantation, pine shoot tip moths have gotten into the terminal leaders of a number of my Norway spruce-and to a lesser extent, white pines-and I will probably be up there at some point with pole pruner-these are taller plants-and either take out one of the resulting multiple leaders, or shorten them as I describe here. Just depends on what the tree is showing you.

Dern bugs-in quite a few cases, I've lost 4 feet of new growth, these things having grown rapidly in the recent years. But in the long view, it isn't really going to matter much. They'll reform a new leader, or I will help them to select one, and away they'll go.

+oM

just cut one out.. no stub ... your choice... its not really going to matter in 5 years ... or when the trunk is a foot thick.. or 3 ...

you can go tomes way... but i would do that on other species that grow differently ... where it might tkae many years for a hole to fill in.. due to annual growth rate ....

lets be real .... in 3 to 5 years.. you will probably be lifting the canopy ... if you want any lawn that is.... and so there would be little use for what tom suggests ...

to be clear.. there is no wrong answer between us ...

ken

ps: if you cut all the buds off ... of a given branch.. consider it dead ... that is why tom wants to go back to another lateral branch.. that has buds ... you can not shorten a pine branch.. otherwise ... another way of saying it.. is that many conifers.. pine specifically ..... do not have dormant buds that can magically appear ... like most tree.. e.g. maples ...

Cut off the smaller one.