Firstly, right off the bat, I should say I do actually like (very much!) the U.S. Open as a golf tournament and a major. That may be a slightly-controversial opinion to hold – if you’re on my side of the pond anyway – but there you go – I’ve said it.
Don’t get me wrong – my favourite major is (OF COURSE!) “The Open” and I like The Masters too – all I’m saying is that I’ve always liked the U.S. Open as well – and don’t regard it to be a “tricked-up” major, like many golf fans do in the UK.
I enjoy seeing professional golfers look silly sometimes. And contrary to their moaning about the wind or length of the rough etc – us weekend hackers play on courses like that each week.
It’s ALWAYS blowing a 20MPH wind at my local course and my home course (sadly no more) had PIGGING RIDICULOUS rough as a first cut. I’d play there and KNOW I’d lose 2 or 3 balls a round – every round – even if that ball was hit just a few yards off the fairway!
Walk around a “professional” parkland or heathland golf course (like Wentworth) and you’ll see what I mean.
Each year I go to Wentworth and think to myself “NO WONDER the pros score well here!” The fairways are perfect. They’re better than the greens I play on! The greens are perfect too – and even the rough is like the fairways I play from”.
I love it when the tour goes to somewhere like Oakmont or Shinnecock – as I think the pro golfers suddenly get to play on a course set up like we all play on each week (albeit a couple of thousand yards shorter than the pro golfers courses!).
Historically, it (the U.S. Open) has generally been the highest-scoring major of the year (although lower* than some would have you believe) as the USGA would really like (ideally) the winning score to be around level par.
*The average winning score for the last four US Opens has been -8.5 (see below).
Generally, in the past, The USGA have set up their US Open golf course to be tough. Penal, thigh-high rough, glassy greens, narrow fairways etc. And with that set up, the US Open has got a stubborn reputation for being won, in the main, by steady-Eddies. By accurate golfers. By the shorter hitters perhaps. By the thinkers. The plotters. The Luke Donalds and Graeme McDowells, rather than the Dustin Johnsons and Rory McIlroys. (Yes… you read that right – that’s what many people STILL think of the US Open as being like, despite overwhelming evidence to the clear contrary).
OK. OK. The US Open is sometimes won by someone like Graeme McDowell (I REFUSE to call him “G-Mac”, in the same way that I would FULLY expect anyone and everyone to similarly refuse to call me “D-MACK”) or Webb Simpson – but these days – certainly since the (over)thinking Mike Davis has been very influential in the USGA, big hitters tend to do very well indeed at US Opens – in fact they tend to do so well… they win!
It has (and will be for ever it seems) repeatedly been said that driving accuracy is the MOST important trait to look for when looking to predict a US Open winner.
Let’s look at that notion more closely.
Below is a table of the average stats for the last 10 US Open winners (not including 2018 which would actually demonstrate my point even more starkly).
You’ll see from the above then, that whilst accuracy off the tee is often touted as being the MOST important attribute to possess at a US Open – statistically speaking it’s actually the LEAST important attribute to hold. By some way.
Big hitters do well all over the professional golf tours and STILL do well at US Opens. This is primarily because even the most accurate drivers will find the rough from time to time at US Open golf course set-ups – but will be too far back to recover well – whereas the bigger hitters will be 30 or so yards further down the hole and more able (often) to recover better.
Forgetting yesterday (which again would demonstrate my point even better), seven of the last 10 US Open winners were ranked in the TOP TEN for driving distance and nowhere NEAR the top ten for driving accuracy.
But old habits do die hard – and again, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, golf experts (on US TV and British TV) consistently state each year that to win a US Open you need to be “smart” and “a thinker”.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m sure Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka have their own personal qualities – but being smart probably isn’t one of them – and between those two “thinkers”, well…. they’ve won all three of the last US Opens – and that really should have been the last four!
Even this year at perhaps the 2nd hardest (or most feared?) golf course in the States (perhaps after Oakmont I’d say) – where the experts confidently said Brooks Koepka couldn’t win because whilst the wide-open Erin Hills played into his hands, the altogether tighter Shinnecock would catch him out – he ……. won.
So please…. can we stop suggesting you need a clever, accurate plotter to win a US Open. It just isn’t so – and hasn’t been for a decade or so, at least.
Oh.
By the way…
Well done Brooks Koepka again! (Smiley face emoji. Dollars signs for eyes emoji!).
The Black Rabbit Golf Blog 