OAKMONT, Pa. — The third major championship of the season has arrived, and if the 2025 U.S. Open is anything like the first two, one can expect to see the normal candidates atop the leaderboard and a few surprises intertwined. While those tournaments were respectively won by Rory McIlroy (Masters) and Scottie Scheffler (PGA Championship), the first two majors were nearly in the hands of a couple of unusual suspects.
At Augusta National, it was Justin Rose who posted the clubhouse lead and narrowly lost in a playoff to McIlroy. While Scheffler scorched the Earth at Quail Hollow, the leaderboard just beneath him included names such as Harris English, Davis Riley and Jhonattan Vegas, who led for most of the early portion of the championship.
Majors seem to be falling in favor of the world’s best players now more than ever. The last six have gone to four of the best players in the world — Scheffler (twice), Xander Schauffele, (twice), McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau — but a couple bounces here and there, and the stories being told are completely different.
That is where these trends can come in hand. They can identify those names that might be getting overshadow. They can reveal the unlikely source of an underdog. They can add an unlikely character into a championship which many believe only five players can win.
Those five players can certainly win — and one of them may wind up finding the winner’s circle Sunday in Pennsylvania — but let’s remember this is golf, and this is a U.S. Open where anything can still take place — particularly at a test like Oakmont Country Club.
1. Official World Golf Rankings
Not all of the 156 contenders accumulate OWGR points given where they play the bulk of their golf, but the system does remain accurate for those that do. Each of the last 10 winners have been inside the top 50 in the OWGR — in fact, only one of the last 53 major champions has been outside that mark with that being Phil Mickelson at the 2021 PGA Championship. Similar to the PGA, the top-50 cutoff for those players on circuits that do accumulate OWGR seems like a good starting point.
Eliminated: Non-LIV Golf players outside the top 50 of the OWGR, notably Tom Kim, Cameron Young, Matt Fitzpatrick, Si Woo Kim, Michael Kim, Jhonattan Vegas, Davis Riley
2. Courses change, stakes do not
The U.S. Open makes the trek up to the suburbs of Pittsburgh for a record 10th time, but not all those in the field will be familiar with Oakmont when they step onto the property. Veterans may have a slight leg up but not a large one given the changes to the golf course since the last time the U.S. Open was held in 2016. Regardless, quality has proven to be an important barometer at this championship in particular as nine of the last 10 champions had a top-25 finish to their name with Wyndham Clark being the outlier.
Eliminated: Sepp Straka, Maverick McNealy, Ben Griffin, Robert MacIntyre, J.J. Spaun, Nick Taylor, Ryan Fox, Andrew Novak, Sahith Theegala, J.T. Poston, Tom Hoge, Richard Bland, Jose Ballester, Jinichiro Kozuma, Carlos Ortiz
3. What have you done for me lately?
Major champions rarely pop up out of the blue. Before his win at Pinehurst No. 2, DeChambeau was in the mix at the Masters and nearly won the PGA Championship only to be clipped by a single stroke on the 72nd hole. While DeChambeau had not won in 2024 before raising the U.S. Open trophy, he continued a trend of all 10 of the last winners claiming at least one podium finish in the same season before their victories.
Eliminated: Xander Schauffele, Tommy Fleetwood, Patrick Cantlay, Keegan Bradley, Wyndham Clark, Aaron Rai, Taylor Pendrith, Adam Scott, Tony Finau, Byeong Hun An, Denny McCarthy, Jordan Spieth, Max Greyserman, Cameron Smith, Dustin Johnson
4. Let’s get technical
The last 10 champions all averaged at least +0.75 strokes gained per round in the three months leading up to their victories. Spieth (2015) headlined the group with +2.80. Koepka (2018) and Jon Rahm (2021) also checked in north of +2.00 strokes gained per round, while Fitzpatrick (+1.96), Clark (+1.93) and DeChambeau (+1.90) settled in right around the +1.95 average of the last 10 winners — the number we will be using as our benchmark, much to the dismay of many recent major champions and many potential contenders.
Eliminated: Rory McIlroy, Collin Morikawa, Justin Thomas, Ludvig Åberg, Russell Henley, Hideki Matsuyama, Shane Lowry, Viktor Hovland, Harris English, Justin Rose, Sam Burns, Sungjae Im, Brian Harman, Daniel Berger, Akshay Bhatia, Min Woo Lee, Thomas Detry, Jason Day, Lucas Glover, Stephan Jaeger, Mackenzie Hughes, Tyrrell Hatton, Marc Leishman, Brooks Koepka, Patrick Reed, Phil Mickelson
5. Keep calm and carry a big stick
Our field of 156 players has been trimmed to five, but with what Oakmont demands, one final hurdle will need to be jumped by competitors. Driving competence may never be more important than it is this week. Johnson was gaining +1.27 strokes off the tee per round in the lead up to his win at Oakmont, and a similar output is likely to be required from the eventual champion. The last 10 winners have averaged +0.84 strokes gained off the tee, which will be the cut-off point for our purposes.
Eliminated: Corey Conners, Joaquin Niemann
That leaves us with … three golfers
Scottie Scheffler, Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm
Well, no surprises here. DeChambeau and Rahm have been the two best drivers of the golf ball over the last three months, and that showed at various stages of the PGA Championship. DeChambeau would be the first since Koepka to successfully defend his U.S. Open, while Rahm would add his second title belt as well.
The concern for both players lie on approach as both are experiencing down years in that strokes-gained category while Scheffler continues to thrive. The world No. 1 is the heavy favorite, and it is for good reason as he is the most well-rounded player in the game (not necessarily always the case). He’ll need to rebound from his T41 finish a season ago at Pinehurst No. 2 where he entered with high expectations, but I wouldn’t be betting against that.