U.S. Open 2024 storylines: Don’t undersell Collin Morikawa, Brooks Koepka as Scottie Scheffle remains hot

The US Open is here and it looks like it will be a big event this year. Sure, they’re all great to some extent, but the U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2 certainly presents a different presentation than the tournament at most other places. There have been fascinating national championships contested there, including Payne Stewart over Phil Mickelson in 1999, Michael Campbell holding off Tiger Woods in 2005 when no one broke par, and Martin Kaymer boat racing the field in 2014.

This year, given all the storylines at stake, the US Open should be immensely interesting. Of course we have to start at the top, with the man around whom the golf world revolves. Scottie Scheffler, fresh off a victory at the Memorial and having won five of his last eight tournaments, is looking for his second major of the year.

The last man to win the Masters and US Open in the same year was Jordan Spieth in 2015, when he won at Augusta National and Chambers Bay. Before that, it was Tiger Woods in 2002, when he won at Augusta and Bethpage Black. Here is the full list of players who have done so.

• 1941 – Craig Wood
• 1951 – Ben Hogan
• 1960 – Arnold Palmer
• 1972 – Jack Nicklaus
• 2002 – Tiger Woods
• 2015 – Jordan Spieth

Scheffler could also become the third player since 1983, besides Nick Price (1994) and Woods (2000, 2005-06), to win at least six times in a season, two of them majors. That’s a crazy company, and he’s the 3-1 favorite to join them.

Let’s dive deeper into his US Open chances and what the other stories are happening this week at Pinehurst.

2024 US Open Stories

1. The Scottie Slam: Tiger had the Tiger Slam, four consecutive majors in two years. If Scottie wins Pinehurst as he is the favorite to do, we will have the Scottie Slam – two of the first three majors of the year sandwiched around an arrest in the second. The intermediate event would have been considered more unlikely at the beginning of the year than the other two, but suddenly, after his victory at the Memorial (which followed wins at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Players, Masters and RBC Heritage), every “W” additional” for Scheffler is historic.

Only three golfers have won more than 6 times in a season since 1983 – Woods (three times, including nine wins in 2000), Price and Vijay Singh (nine wins in 2004) – and Scheffler will have about six additional opportunities to join. they.

Pinehurst is expected to highlight the breadth of its talent this week, which is a scary thought for someone who has lost to just nine golfers in the last eight events since March 1.

2. The Forgotten Man: No one is talking about Collin Morikawa for this US Open, but maybe they should be. It’s Morikawa — not Scheffler, not Xander Schauffele, not Rory McIlroy, not anyone — who has been in Sunday’s final pairing at the Masters and PGA Championship so far this year. In theory, the US Open should also be the tournament he plays best. He has three consecutive top 15s, and his ball-striking has once again returned to Collin Morikawa’s hitting levels. He is extremely alive to win what would be his third major and claim three career Grand Slam stages at the age of 27, with just one Masters – where he has three consecutive top 10s – left to win.

3. Jon Rahm Questions: One of the best golfers in the world a year ago is completely panicked now. It would be one thing if this player was a success, but I believe Rahm is a generational player and therefore his struggles this year are important. He struggled to finish poorly at the Masters before completely missing the cut at the PGA Championship. After a WD in his most recent LIV Golf event due to a foot problem, Rahm comes into a tournament he’s won before with zero momentum. Because he’s Jon Rahm, this can all spin in one round or even nine holes, but his regression – Data Golf rates him as the seventh player in the world, which is almost the lowest level since 2019 – is one of the arcs of most interesting stories not just for the US Open, but throughout the entire year.

4. Golf Course Setup: As Greg DuCharme said on CBS Sports’ First Cut podcast last Sunday, the golf course is always a big story at the US Open. It will be under even more scrutiny this year for two reasons.

1. Only three players have played under par at Pinehurst in a US Open week.
2. Los Angeles Country Club was widely considered a very easy setup a year ago.

I believe Pinehurst is truly what we thought the LACC would be, and I hope the USGA takes it to the limit – to the point where golfers are mentally and emotionally exhausted, even after the first few rounds. This is something we haven’t seen much of in professional golf lately, and it would be awesome to experience.

5. Out of nowhere: Sometimes setups like this can create winners that seem to come out of nowhere. Although Stewart was a strong player when he won in 1999, Campbell was not. He qualified at the European trials with a birdie on his final hole and then held off Woods on Sunday in a major. Golf, honey. Kaymer falls between these two players. He was solid, having won the 2010 PGA Championship at Whistling Straits, but perhaps wasn’t seen as a star. And he opened 65-65 in 2014 and won by eight.

The reason courses like Pinehurst create separation is because the risk-reward factor on each shot is greater than, say, Valhalla. So if someone is really hitting the ball well in a given week, separation can occur. This is reductive and rules out a number of other reasons, but venues like Pinehurst seem to open the door for some “unhappy” champions more than other tracks.

6. Who is Xander now? I’m curious to see how winning the PGA Championship will impact Xander Schauffele in the long run. He has been incredible in the majors for the last 10 years. In fact, since the start of 2016, only Brooks Koepka and Rory McIlroy have had better overall putting numbers across the four majors among players with more than 100 rounds. His downfall to date has simply been not winning a major tournament. Now that he has, will it change how he is viewed or how he plays? Major championship victories are career-changing events, even for golfers as good as Schauffele. It will be interesting to see how this idea takes root in Schauffele’s US Open and major future experiments.

7. Is Hovland back? Many say that Viktor Hovland is the new Jordan Spieth. The roller coaster is real. After nearly winning Valhalla, he was close to the lead at the Memorial through 43 holes. Then the next 29 holes were a 10-over disaster. His short game was bad in 2024, even by his own standards. Hovland missed strokes on the greens in all but one event (the PGA). This could be a difficult way to play at Pinehurst unless he can two-putt everywhere around the greens like Kaymer did in 2014. Regardless, I’m not sure he’s a good pick to start the week, even though what he does and how he plays at this US Open intrigues based on his first five months of the season.

8. What will the Big Golfer do? Is it still appropriate to call Bryson DeChambeau a “Great Golfer”? Maybe “Average-sized, suddenly athletic golfer” would fit better? Besides Scheffler, DeChambeau was this year’s top major golfer. I’m interested to see how he plays at Pinehurst, which will require some extremely difficult shots on the greens. He’s as creative as they come, but there have been times — No. 15 at Augusta this year, when he launched one into the water, rings a bell — when he struggles with short, difficult shots. Bryson is certainly playing well from tee to green, which will greatly help him in his quest for his second US Open. If the short game is also organized, I suspect he will struggle.

9. The Other Forgotten Man: If Morikawa has been forgotten, Brooks Koepka is barely remembered. Koepka’s finishes in the last six US Opens he has competed in look like this: Win, Win, 2nd, T4, 55th, T17. Average finish: 13th. Is anyone talking about him? Of course. Maybe that’s fair. He hasn’t been in the top 10 in a major since his victory at the PGA Championship a year ago. However, while his play may not be at Scheffler’s level, his decision-making at major tournaments—specifically the US Open—is unparalleled. If he enters the hunt early, we could be in for a monster showdown of two of the most prolific winners (and important players) of the last 10 years on Sunday.

10. Tiger Woods’ return to Pinehurst: Tiger has a real chance to get through this phase and play decently in a way he didn’t in Valhalla. This is a much more exciting golf course and can be played with the mind and hands than a beastly PGA Championship. Pinehurst isn’t Augusta National, but it has a more Augusta feel. He has no chance of winning, of course, but it will be interesting to see how he handles some of those pitches and how he moves at Pinehurst for the first time since 2005.