The game of golf is in the midst of an experiencing an incredible run of dominance at the major championship by the world’s best players. Given the intense test and the overall skill required by Oakmont Country Club, the expectation is that viewers will once again see a big name hoisting the 2025 U.S. Open trophy come Sunday night.
While all of the favorites on top of the odds sheet this week all have the talent to win, they each have a swing skill or nagging weakness that will ultimately make or break their week. Oakmont is the premier golfing stress test. It demands that players execute across every aspect of the game, both physically and mentally.
Let’s explore those determining factors — areas in which the eight favorites in the field will need to succeed — with the 2025 U.S. Open approaching. Here is what you should be watching from these players throughout the week. Odds via FanDuel Sportsbook
Scottie Scheffler (11/4) — Short and intermediate putting: There aren’t really holes in Scheffler’s game right now, which is why he’s won three of his last four starts (finishing T4 in the other). He’s unbelievably accurate off the tee and stands as the best ball-striker in the world, but the one area that can hold him back is his putting. He’s been great of late, but the greens at Oakmont are going to be running faster than anything he’s seen in the last two months. It was the biggest area of weakness for him last year at Pinehurst No. 2, and how he handles those 4-12 footers on Oakmont’s slippery greens will determine whether he’s picking up his fourth major and third leg of the career grand slam.
Bryson DeChambeau (15/2) — Distance control with irons: What’s held Bryson back in the first two majors has been inconsistency with his distance control on approach. He’s been phenomenal on and around the greens, and he is one of the best drivers of the golf ball on the planet. However, at both the Masters and the PGA Championship, we saw him make some jarring mistakes with his irons and wedges, missing wildly both short and long. That cannot happen at Oakmont if he wants to win a third U.S. Open, and his ability to hit his number consistently will make or break him.
Jon Rahm (12-1) — Double bogey avoidance: Rahm’s ejection on the final three holes at Quail Hollow was stunning to watch but not entirely shocking as he’s had problems putting big numbers on the card in the past. Even when he won the Masters, he doubled his first hole of the week. Rahm can get overly aggressive and take on unnecessary challenges, and at a place like Oakmont, that can become a double really quickly. Bogeys aren’t going to ruin your chances at winning the U.S. Open, but doubles and triples can because you don’t get that many opportunities to get those shots back. He’ll need to take his medicine sometimes and play smart, patient golf if he’s going to add a third major to his resume.
Rory McIlroy (12-1) — Driver confidence (and general motivation): Initially, the plan was to focus on McIlroy needing to find his inner drive again after completing the career grand slam. We wondered what McIlroy would look like freed from the burden of his major drought and the grand slam chase. Hope was that we would see him fully unleashed, but he’s gone the entire other direction. While he shed all the emotional weight and internal pressure, he also seems to have lost a bit of his motivation. That’s understandable, but after his comments at the PGA Championship about not wanting to set specific goals — and then how flat he looked across the last two tournaments — it might be for the best for him to come up with something more concrete to chase than just “playing well.”
However, after what we saw in Toronto last week, he needs to not only figure that mental aspect out but also get confidence back with what has long been his biggest weapon. His driver getting pulled at the PGA became a big story, but he’s allowed it to become an even larger topic by seemingly getting rattled by having to put a new club in the bag in a way others (like Scheffler, who won the PGA with his backup) have not. Some of that is McIlroy trying to go from TaylorMade’s old model (Qi10) to the new one (Qi35) and not liking it much, but he’s just got to figure it out.
Rory spoke in Toronto about his miss being different as the old driver went left and the new one goes right; it’s clear he’s not comfortable with aiming off the tee, making defensive swings that have neutered his greatest strength. That won’t work at Oakmont, and after we wondered whether he might go on an incredible run piling up more major trophies, it’s taken two months for us to go back to wondering whether he can get another any time soon.
Xander Schauffele (22-1) — Finding his complete game: Schauffele has been shockingly mediocre this season in two areas (driving, putting) that he dominated a year ago when he won two majors. His iron play remains fantastic, but he’s 127th on the PGA Tour in strokes gained off the tee and 139th in strokes gained putting. Those are shocking figures for a guy who was top 12 in both categories a year ago. He’s not had the right rhythm off the tee since coming back from his early season oblique injury, and I wonder whether he’s struggling to create the speed he wants as easily as he was prior to the injury, causing him to spray it all over the course. The putting could simply be a matter of focusing more energy on working on the full swing and not giving his putter the TLC it needs to stay sharp. The problem for Schauffele this week? Those are two extremely key areas for getting around Oakmont, and he needs to be vastly improved in both to have a chance at his third major.
Collin Morikawa (25-1) — Finishing: For as much talent as he possesses, Morikawa is not the kind of dynamic player that some of his contemporaries at the top of the world rankings have proven to be. As such, he has to thrive off consistency. That’s how he won his first two major titles, but lately, he has struggled to finish strong — both in tournaments with lackluster Sundays and in individual rounds with poor closing stretches. At each of the first two majors this season, Morikawa jumped up the leaderboard early Thursday before giving back a lot of his hard work in the final few holes. That can’t happen for him to win majors, and what I’ll be watching for this week at Oakmont is whether he can put a solid 18 holes together each day and avoid those lapses in focus that have cost him recently.
Ludvig Åberg (25-1) — Regain consistency: When he’s at his best, Åberg has a Scheffler-like Terminator quality to his game, where he just doesn’t seem to make a bad swing. We saw that twice in majors last year and again early this season, but he’s been shockingly inconsistent in the middle part of the 2025 season. He has such an ideal swing aesthetic that it seems impossible that anything could go wrong with it, but lately, Åberg has been fighting with his approach play and his putting has lagged behind as a result of just not having as many good looks on the greens.
Åberg possesses everything you could want as a golfer, from skills to demeanor, but something is not quite right at the moment. It feels like he just needs a really good round or two to get back on track, and perhaps the challenge of Oakmont is what he needs to narrow his focus and get back to playing the way he did in last year’s Masters and U.S. Open when he was knocking on the door for a major win.
Joaquin Niemann (30-1) — Playing freely: We have never seen the best version of Niemann in a major, which is frustrating because you watch him destroy LIV Golf fields (which include some extremely talented players) and wonder why it never translates on the biggest stages. It often looks like he tries to be too perfect and plays tight, and as any golfer knows, that only ends poorly. He’s saying the right things coming into Oakmont about just enjoying the challenge and trying to play his game, but that’s also much easier said than done. If he can let it rip and just trust his talent level, perhaps he can finally get in the mix on Sunday.