U.S. OPEN: If your idea of a great golf tournament is watching the best players in the world struggle to make pars, then your week has arrived. The U.S. Open has come to be regarded as the toughest test in all of golf, and that’s a reputation that the USGA evidently enjoys based on the way they continue to set up the courses. Tight fairways, rock-hard greens, and ridiculously penal rough have become the hallmarks of a U.S. Open venue, and the multitude of complaints that the committee receives from the players every year are apparently of no concern to the self-appointed Guardians of the Game.
Fortunately, this year’s venue, Erin Hills in rural Wisconsin, is said to be in perfect condition, so we won’t have the plinko-like episodes on the greens that we saw at Chambers Bay a couple of years ago. And the fairways at Erin Hills are apparently wider than we normally see at a U.S. Open, which has led some to speculate that the scoring will be unusually low at this year’s championship.
Color me unconvinced. Though it isn’t exceptionally tight, Erin Hills is the longest course in U.S. Open history, tipping out at 7,741 yards, and the fescue that borders every hole is unplayably thick, as Kevin Na demonstrated a couple of days ago in his now-viral video (link). The fescue was actually trimmed down on four holes early Tuesday, a move that many interpreted as a response to complaints from players like Na and Lee Westwood. But as soon as that happened, naturally, you had other players– most notably Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth– express their unhappiness with the trimming, saying that the landing areas were wide enough already. You can’t please everybody, as the USGA learns every year at this tournament, but if they can make it through the week without a galling rules gaffe that draws the ire of none other than Jack Nicklaus, it would be a good start.
Dustin Johnson is the defending champion and he heads BETDAQ’s Win Market at 9.2, but the world No. 1 has cooled a bit since his red-hot stretch a couple of months back and is coming off a missed cut at The Memorial, where he opened with an ugly 78. Johnson is joined at the top of the market by the rest of the modern-day “Big Four”– McIlroy (15.0), Spieth (17.5), and Jason Day (16.0), while the next tier is comprised of players like Rickie Fowler (24.0), Justin Rose (29.0), Sergio Garcia (28.0), and the ever-dangerous Jon Rahm (22.0). As is always the case with a major, there are lots of quality players with attractive prices next to their names, and the “newness” of Erin Hills adds a layer of unpredictability that might increase the value of some of the long-odds types.
So… where does that leave us? What type of player will Erin Hills favor? There’s a bit of guesswork involved, no doubt, but after combing through the market carefully we’ve come up with a few suggestions:
WIN MARKET
Recommendations to BACK (odds in parenthesis)
Henrik Stenson (37.0)- Despite a championship pedigree, Stenson has been flying under the radar ever since struggling with injuries early in the season, but he’s been in fine form lately, finishing third at the BMW PGA a couple of weeks ago– a performance that was bookended by a T16 at the Players Championship and a T26 at the Nordea Masters. A world-class ball-striker, Stenson has an excellent record at the U.S. Open, making the cut in 6 of his past 7 appearances and finishing in the top-30 all six times, with a T4 in 2014 standing out as his best finish to date. No one knows for sure what type of player to look for at Erin Hills, but Stenson has won all over the world and his game is very adaptable, and he proved at last year’s Open Championship that he has the mettle to succeed under major-championship pressure. He has just as good a chance this week as anyone in the field with the exception of maybe two or three guys, which makes him a great value at a price like 37.0.
Shane Lowry (68.0)- Lowry has some demons to conquer after blowing a 4-shot final round lead at Oakmont last year, but he seems like a resilient type who keeps golf in proper perspective, so if anything I think what happened last year will work to his advantage this week– he’ll use it as motivational fuel. After a quiet winter he is starting to pick up his quality of golf of late, logging top-25 finishes in three of his past four starts, including a T6 at the BMW PGA and a T15 at the Memorial, and you get the feeling that his game is building towards a peak. He’s a quality ball-striker who is superb with the driver in his hands, so in that sense his performance at Oakmont last year wasn’t particularly surprising, and the U.S. Open will likely be a tournament where Lowry continues to enjoy success throughout his career. His putter will have to cooperate this week, but if it does, Lowry might find himself at the top of the leaderboard again come Sunday.
Marc Leishman (102.0)- Leishman is a bit streaky, but he’s proven time and again that when he’s right, he’s as good as anybody. He’s not that far removed from his win at Bay Hill, and he’s been swinging it well lately, finding the top-15 in two of his past three starts. Though his 18th-place finish at Oakmont last year is his best result in a U.S. Open thus far, he seems like a good statistical fit for a place like Erin Hills, ranking inside the top-25 on the PGA Tour in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee and Par-5 Scoring. He’s been on-site for the past two weeks learning the intricacies of the course, and he had very positive things to say about it in an interview with the Australian press earlier this week. At better than 100/1, Leishman may be the best value on the board.
TOURNAMENT MATCH BETS
Branden Grace (1.97) vs, Brooks Koepka (1.8)
Koepka is one of the longest guys in the world, so you would think that a U.S. Open on a 7,700-yard course would be right up his alley. But he’s cooled off since his runner-up finish in San Antonio, failing to find the top-30 in each of his past three starts, and he’s prone to big numbers on occasion, so I’m not sure that Erin Hills, where every hole is lined with knee-high fescue, will be a great fit. Grace, meanwhile, specializes in driving it straight, and he has a great record in majors over the past couple of years. He also happens to be playing well at the moment, finishing 11th or better in three of his past four worldwide starts. Recommendation: Grace at 1.97
Justin Rose (1.91) vs. Sergio Garcia (1.91)
Sergio has been playing beautifully since his career-defining Masters win and has now found the top-30 in six consecutive starts. And as good as he is tee to green, there’s no reason to think he won’t contend again this week. Rose is also having a nice year– a final-round 80 at the Players Championship is really his only blemish over these past few weeks– and he has a good record in the U.S. Open, but he hasn’t been playing quite as frequently as Sergio, teeing it up just twice since the Masters, and he hasn’t been playing quite as well, either, as he hasn’t beaten Garcia in a tournament in which they were both entered since February’s Genesis Open. I really like Sergio’s vibe lately; it just seems like he’s playing with house money, so to speak. Recommendation: Garcia at 1.91
