The eight best bets to win this year’s U.S. Open
The U.S. Open returns to Pinehurst No. 2 in North Carolina for what should be a stern test. One of the country’s most renowned courses, Pinehurst features challenging turtleback greens and zero rough, and its length and wiregrass-littered sandy waste areas should make for a challenging four days.
Pinehurst hasn’t hosted the U.S. Open since 2014, so we can’t read a whole lot into course history. Instead, we’ll look for some combination of good form, good U.S. Open history and the ability to hit the ball long and straight off the tee.
Here are some recent U.S. Open trends:
• Each of the past 13 U.S. Open winners was ranked in the top 32 of the Official World Golf Rankings, with last year’s winner Wyndham Clark setting the low bar among recent champions at No. 32 entering the 2023 tournament at Los Angeles Country Club.
• Thirteen of the past 14 winners had a top-25 U.S. Open finish on his résumé. Only Clark didn’t, having missed two U.S. Open cuts before his breakthrough in 2023. You have to go back to 2009 to find another such outlier with Lucas Glover, who had three missed cuts in three U.S. Open appearances before his victory.
• Eleven of the past 12 winners made the cut in his previous U.S. Open start and in his previous major appearance (Clark, as is becoming a theme here, was the outlier). Before him, Rory McIlroy was the previous champion who couldn’t claim that, having missed the U.S. Open cut in 2010 before winning in 2011.
• Seven of the past nine winners and 10 of the past 14 had posted a top-10 finish in at least one of his previous two majors.
• Eight of the past 10 winners and 10 of the past 14 had a top-15 finish in one or both of his previous two starts. This is one where Clark fit the bill, having finished 12th in the tournament that preceded last year’s U.S. Open.
• Twelve of the past 15 U.S. Open winners were first-time major champions. This is another box that Clark checked.
As you can probably tell, Clark wasn’t one of our choices entering last year’s U.S. Open (he previously had never finished better than 75th at a major championship), but he came out of relative nowhere to nip Rory McIlroy by a stroke. Hey, it happens, and two years ago this system identified winner Matt Fitzpatrick. Here’s hoping we can get back on track.
All odds taken Monday afternoon from DraftKings Sportsbook.
Scottie Scheffler (+320)
While there hasn’t been a sure thing in golf since Tiger Woods’s imperial era, Scheffler is getting pretty close to it. He has five wins this year, and all five came in elite-field events played on difficult courses (the Masters, Players Championship, Arnold Palmer, RBC Heritage and Memorial). The last golfer with at least five wins including a major entering the U.S. Open? Arnold Palmer in 1962. Over his past eight tournaments, Scheffler has finished no worse than eighth. But more importantly, Scheffler’s game is a great fit for Pinehurst No. 2, which features turtleback greens that are exceedingly difficult to hold because there’s no rough to stop a ball from rolling away from the greens. The world’s top-ranked golfer is fourth this season on the PGA Tour in scrambling and is No. 14 in strokes gained: around the green, key assets at Pinehurst.
Trend match: Scheffler matches five of six trends listed above (he wouldn’t be a first-time major champion). And while it’s often no fun betting chalk – Scheffler is the biggest U.S. Open favorite since Woods was +200 in 2009 – it’s hard not to think he gets it done this weekend (so long as he can avoid getting arrested).
Xander Schauffele (+1100)
Hitting it long and straight is an avenue to success at the U.S. Open, where anything that misses the fairway can lead to calamity. And that’s Schauffele in a nutshell: The world’s second-ranked player is fifth in the PGA Tour’s total driving metric, which combines distance and accuracy, and seventh in strokes gained off the tee. And were it not for Scheffler’s superlatives this year, everyone likely would be talking about Schauffele’s run of elite play, with his major-championship breakthrough at the PGA Championship and 12 other top-10 finishes. Plus, in seven U.S. Open appearances he has six top 10s, with the other finish a tie for 14th (he’s the only player to finish in the U.S. Open top 15 in each of the past seven years). Back -to -back majors? I wouldn’t rule it out.
Trend match: Like Scheffler, Schauffele matches five of six trends, with the only strike against him (such as it is) being the fact that he’s won a major championship.
Collin Morikawa (+1400)
Morikawa leads the PGA Tour in driving accuracy, and his irons have been firing since an early-season lull: He ranked fourth in strokes gained: approach at the Masters (Morikawa tied for third on the leader board, his best Masters finish) and also gained more than a stroke per round with his irons at the PGA Championship (he finished fourth overall), where he also ranked second in strokes gained: around the green.
Morikawa also is coming off a Memorial tournament in which he nearly tracked down Scheffler on Sunday before settling for second place, his approach shots once again sterling. His past three U.S. Open appearances have resulted in 14th-, fifth- and fourth-place finishes.
Trend match: Morikawa falls into the same group as Scheffler and Schauffele, meeting all of our trends except for the first-time major champion (Morikawa has two grand-slam titles).
Bryson DeChambeau (+1800)
DeChambeau is one of four golfers who have finished within the top 10 at both major championships this season (Scheffler, Morikawa and Schauffele are the others), and his performance on the LIV Golf circuit has been encouraging, with four top 10s.
He’s also a proven commodity on difficult courses, as evidenced by his 2020 U.S. Open win at Winged Foot, when he won by six strokes and was the only golfer to finish the tournament under par. DeChambeau’s length off the tee should be an asset on one of the longest courses anyone’s going to see this season, and if he can keep it on the fairway, watch out.
Trend match: DeChambeau is a match on four of six trends, though one of his misses should be taken with a grain of salt. LIV golfers do not accrue OWGR points, so DeChambeau has slipped to No. 38 in the rankings.
Tommy Fleetwood (+3500)
Fleetwood not only is near the top of the list of players who have yet to win a major championship, but he’s probably also the best golfer who has never won on American soil (the world No. 13 has seven European tour wins, however).
But you have to like his chances this week considering his accuracy off the tee (he’s third in that category in PGA Tour play) and around the green (he ranks 17th in strokes gained around the green).
Fleetwood has finished in the top 10 in three of the last four majors – he tied for third at this year’s Masters – so he’s been knocking on the door.
Trend match: Fleetwood fits five of six of our trends, only missing out on a top-15 finish in either of his last two starts (he was 21st and 20th).
Matt Fitzpatrick (+4000)
Fitzpatrick is just two years removed from his U.S. Open win at the Country Club, and there are signs he might be in position for another title. He gained strokes in every category last weekend on his way to a tie for fifth at the Memorial, his best result since a fifth-place finish at the Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass in March. And there might be something of a Pinehurst-Sawgrass connection: Of the 11 golfers to finish in the top 10 the last time Pinehurst hosted the U.S. Open in 2014, five also have a Players Championship win on their résumé, including 2014 U.S. Open winner Martin Kaymer. Four others from that 2014 list have multiple top 10s at the Players, as well. Fitzpatrick has two Players Championship top 10s over the past four years, and he also ranks ninth on the PGA Tour in total driving.
Trend match: Fitzpatrick only meets three of six trends, but we’re willing to look past that for a guy who has proven he can win in the toughest of circumstances.
Hideki Matsuyama (+4500)
Matsuyama’s U.S. Open track record is nearly as good as Schauffele’s. In 11 attempts, he has three top 10s and only one missed cut (he tied for 35th the last time Pinehurst hosted the tournament in 2014). He’s also coming off a tie for eighth at the Memorial, where he gained strokes in every category and ranked second in strokes gained: putting for the event. Matsuyama leads the PGA Tour in strokes gained: around the green this season, and if he can fix an occasionally wonky driver, the Japanese star could be a good look.
Trend match: The 2021 Masters champion is a match on four of six trends. His first two major championships this year resulted in a tie for 38th and a tie for 35th.
Keegan Bradley (+7500)
The one thing that traditionally has held Bradley back was his putting, but he’s now gained strokes on the greens in four straight starts. He’s also one of only eight golfers who finished inside the top 25 at both majors this season, and he’s tied for second at two other tournaments this season (one of them the Charles Schwab in late May). The PGA Tour veteran has only two U.S. Open top 10s in his career, but one of them came in 2014 when he tied for fourth at Pinehurst No. 2. Bradley ranks 12th on the PGA Tour in total driving, and his overall ball striking has been impressive of late.
Trend match: Like Fitzpatrick, Bradley only meets three of six trends, but we like where his game is at.
As of Monday afternoon, here were the odds to win the U.S. Open of the leading contenders, according to DraftKings Sportsbook:
- Scottie Scheffler: +320
- Xander Schauffele: +1100
- Rory McIlroy: +1100
- Collin Morikawa: +1400
- Viktor Hovland: +1800
- Bryson DeChambeau: +1800
- Ludvig Aberg: +2000
- Brooks Koepka: +2200
- Jon Rahm: +2800
- Tommy Fleetwood: +3500
- Matt Fitzpatrick: +4000
- Justin Thomas: +4000
- Cameron Smith: +4000
- Hideki Matsuyama: +4500