US Open analysis: What to know as the world’s best invade Pinehurst

The third men’s major championship of the year sees the U.S. Open return to a Donald Ross North Carolina masterpiece, Pinehurst No. 2.

Brutal wiregrass awaits those who miss wildly with driver. Lightning-fast, crown-shaped putting surfaces make for a uniquely torturous test. The native areas at No. 2 have visibly matured in the decade since the world’s best convened here for back-to-back weeks at the 2014 U.S. Open and Women’s Open. Maybe the only star guaranteed to outshine Scottie Scheffler this week is the golf course.

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This is the fourth U.S. Open contested at Pinehurst No. 2, and the second since an extensive restoration by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw took place early last decade. In 2014, Martin Kaymer spent the first two rounds in a full sprint ahead of the field, setting the Open’s 36-hole record for scoring (130) and tying the largest ever second-round lead (6 shots). While Kaymer won by eight, 10 players finished the week between 1-under and 2-over, including Rickie Fowler (T2), Brooks Koepka (T4), Dustin Johnson (T4), Jason Day (T4), Henrik Stenson (T4) and Adam Scott (T9).

While fairways are accessible (the field hit them 70 percent of the time in ’14), the penalty for an errant drive at Pinehurst is immense. Players who hit the fairway off the tee in the 2014 U.S. Open then found the green in regulation 66 percent of the time. Following a missed fairway, that number plummeted to below 38 percent. Each of the three previous U.S. Open winners here ranked in the top 10 in the field that week in percentage of fairways hit.

In each of the previous three Opens held at Pinehurst No. 2, the field scrambled at a rate of less than 50 percent. Play around the greens is almost always more significant amidst a comprehensive exam like the U.S. Open. Complete strokes gained data is available for this championship going back to 2017. In that span, players who have finished in the top five have gained 19.5 percent of their total strokes with shots around the greens. In all other PGA Tour events in that span, that number is just 12.6 percent.

Putting these ‘upside-down cereal bowl greens’ is no picnic, either. By the traditional metric of putts per green in regulation, Pinehurst was either the most difficult or second-most-difficult course to putt in each of the 1999, 2005 and 2014 PGA Tour seasons. Ten years ago, the field successfully converted their birdie opportunities just 20.6 percent of the time, a steep decline from the season average (28.5 percent).

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Scheffler’s victory at the Memorial Tournament last week was his fifth of the 2024 season, the fastest any player has reached five PGA Tour wins in a calendar year since Tom Watson in 1980. Scheffler is just the second player since 1950 to enter a U.S. Open with at least five PGA Tour wins that season including a major. Arnold Palmer did it twice – when he won at Cherry Hills in 1960, and two years later when he lost in a playoff to Jack Nicklaus at Oakmont.

Scheffler’s distance control with his irons has been worth drooling over this year. He leads all players in average proximity to the hole, sticking it nearly four-and-a-half feet closer than the tour average. He’s not just the best from 150-175 yards away (21-6), he’s the best with a wedge in his hand, too (First from 50-125).

One of the less heralded facets of Scheffler’s greatness is his ability to avoid mistakes, one of the hallmarks of a U.S. Open setup. This season after hitting a fairway on a par 4 or 5, Scheffler has then gone on to make bogey just 5.1 percent of the time, the lowest rate of any player on the PGA Tour. Scheffler is 153-under-par in those situations this season, 25 strokes better than any other player. Good luck, y’all.

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Few players in modern history have been as consistently good at the U.S. Open without winning it than reigning PGA Champ Xander Schauffele. Not only is Schauffele the only player to finish in the top 15 at the U.S. Open each of the last seven years, he’s the first player to begin his U.S. Open career with seven top 15s in a row since Bobby Jones. Since World War II, only Jack Nicklaus (12) and Sam Snead (9) have a streak longer than Schauffele’s at any point in their careers. Schauffele’s career scoring average at the U.S. Open is 70.25, the best of any player the last 50 years with at least 20 rounds under their belt.

The test facing Schauffele and the field this week will be vastly different than the birdie bonanza at Valhalla. In his win last month, Schauffele became the first player in men’s professional golf history to finish 21-under-par. In the previous three U.S. Opens held at Pinehurst, there have been four players – combined – who finished better than par.

Schauffele is one of the few players with the truly complete skill set that reveals itself at a venue like Pinehurst: He is the only man on the PGA Tour this season ranked in the top 40 in strokes gained off-the-tee, approach, around the green and putting.

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One trend worth keeping tabs on this week is whether or not length off the tee continues to strengthen its significance at the U.S. Open. From 1984 through 2015, the average driving distance rank of U.S. Open champions for the week was 27.6. Just 44 percent of those winners ranked in the top 15 for the championship. That has changed dramatically: the last eight champions have a driving distance rank of 6.8, with each ranking in the top 15 (at least) that week.

For past winners at Pinehurst, we have seen a mixed bag when it comes to driving distance. In 1999, Payne Stewart ranked 50th of the 68 players who made the cut that week in average length off the tee. Michael Campbell was middle-of-the-pack (36th) in 2005, while Kaymer ranked seventh the week of his win. And while Johnson (4th in driving distance) and Scott (9th) finished in the top 10 here a decade ago, Erik Compton (40th) tied for runner-up.

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If Wyndham Clark was Scheffler’s main foil earlier in the season (runner-up at Bay Hill and The Players), then Collin Morikawa has taken that mantle more recently (shared the final pairing at the Masters and the Memorial). The two-time major winner is the only player to finish in the top five this year at both the PGA and Masters. Sunday was his toughest day at both Augusta and Valhalla this year: in Rounds 1 through 3 at those two majors, he gained 4.45 strokes on the field per round. In the final round, that number dropped to -1.63.

Morikawa is one of the most improved short-game players on the PGA Tour, up from 88th in 2023 to ninth this year in strokes gained around the green. One of his other strong traits will benefit him greatly around this place: he’s second on tour in both fairways hit and distance from the edge of the fairway on tee shots.

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Thursday will be the 149th men’s major championship round contested since Rory McIlroy won the 2014 PGA. In recent years, McIlroy has been at his best at the U.S. Open. Since 2019, his strokes gained average of +2.94 is nearly a full shot better than any of the other three biggest events in the game. McIlroy is the only player to finish in the top 10 each of the last five years at this championship. In fact, the last player with a longer streak was Jack Nicklaus, who did it in six straight from 1977 to 1982.

McIlroy leads all players in strokes gained ball striking and strokes gained total per round at the U.S. Open since 2019. A year ago at LACC, his 72-hole total of 271 was the lowest score in the history of the championship by a player who didn’t win. His 20 top-10 finishes in majors since his last win are the most of any player in that span. Each of these pieces of information pale in comparison to the simple number draped around his neck for nearly a decade running: 4. His major total.

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At Valhalla, Bryson DeChambeau earned the ill-starred distinction of being the only player in golf history to finish a major 20 strokes under par and not win. He didn’t leave with the Wanamaker, but DeChambeau was unquestionably one of the week’s big winners. Fittingly, the closest thing the sport has to a professional wrestler has executed a reverse heel turn, eliciting arguably the loudest cheers of anybody last month in Kentucky.

Oh, by the way, he’s still an extremely good player. Nobody has gained more strokes off the tee at the majors this year than DeChambeau, which isn’t surprising. What might be, though, is that he is one of just three players to make the cut in both the Masters and PGA this year and average at least 0.3 strokes gained per round in each of the key denominations (the others are Morikawa and Tommy Fleetwood). DeChambeau is more balanced, statistically speaking, than he probably gets credit for. Can the scientist unlock another U.S. Open puzzle?

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While Brooks Koepka has finished outside the top 15 in each of the four majors held since his win at Oak Hill, to make him a footnote entering Thursday’s opening round is foolish. The only other time since 2016 that Koepka went four major starts in a row with no result in the top 15, he went T2 at the 2019 Masters and then won the PGA.

Brooks sandwiched a LIV Golf win in Singapore between ninth-place finishes in Adelaide and Houston. Despite the recent run of un-Brooksian major form, he’s still a combined 92 strokes under par in the majors since 2016, 16 shots better than anyone else in that span. Koepka’s 2.44 strokes gained total per round are the third-most of any player with 20 or more rounds at the U.S. Open the last 50 years, trailing only Schauffele and Tom Weiskopf.

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Jon Rahm was forced to withdraw due to a foot infection, an understandable predicament that only emphasizes how incredible Adam Scott’s current streak in the majors is.

While it was in question for a bit, Scott is in the field this week – making his 92nd consecutive major championship start. The last major without the affable Aussie in the field was the 2001 U.S. Open, won by Retief Goosen at Southern Hills. Nick Dunlap – who won earlier this year on tour – was born more than two years later. Scott is grouped with Billy Horschel and Chris Kirk for the first two rounds.

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In Koepka, Clark, Brian Harman, Scheffler and Schauffele, the men’s game has had five different American winners of the last five majors. It’s the first time that has happened since a run from the 1983 U.S. Open through the following year’s U.S. Open at Winged Foot (Larry Nelson, Tom Watson, Hal Sutton, Ben Crenshaw and Fuzzy Zoeller). If a sixth different American player wins this week, it will be the longest such streak since the late 1970’s.

It’s been especially difficult to recover at major championships recently after a tough opening round. Thirty-nine of the last 41 men’s major winners have opened with week with a round under par. The average first-round deficit of major champions in that stretch is a mere 2.8 strokes.

The test at Pinehurst begins today.