Is the 2025 U.S. Open a case of Scottie Scheffler vs. the field? We break down the golfers at Oakmont and how the difficult course factors into the third major.
The main character at this year’s U.S. Open is the course: Oakmont Country Club, in suburban Pittsburgh, is one of the handful of hardest layouts in the world.
Although Oakmont’s high rough and fast greens get most of the attention, I find the course’s fairway and bunker layout to be the most diabolical part of its design.
Every U.S. Open course requires a champion to hit a lot of great shots, but Oakmont shrinks the definition of a “great shot” by placing trouble in every spot where a player might hit the ball to avoid trouble.
My favorite example of this conflict: the 600-plus-yard par-5 12th hole, which staggers fairway bunkers diagonally so there is no such thing as “taking the bunkers out of play” by hitting a monstrous drive past them. The kicker? That’s one of the easier holes at Oakmont.
It will come as no surprise that Opta Analyst’s FRACAS (Field Rating and Course-Adjusted Strokes Gained) prediction model sees one player as the best pick to outlast the course and the other 155 players. As usual, it’s the world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler.
But there are different degrees of confidence in Scheffler, depending on the week. At the Masters, the model saw Scheffler as essentially a co-favorite with eventual winner Rory McIlroy. The model saw nobody in Scheffler’s ballpark before a first-place finish at the PGA Championship last month.
So far, it’s 2 for 2 in majors.
This week, the model sees Scheffler as an enormous U.S. Open championship favorite – bigger than we’ve yet seen in a major.
FRACAS deploys a strokes-gained format and predicts player performance based on how a golfer has done against difficult fields and on holes that fit into different buckets: short and long par 3s as well as par 4s and 5s of varying difficulty levels. It maps these projections to Oakmont.
Scheffler is the optimal fit for just about any golf course, but FRACAS believes that for the test of Oakmont, he’s approaching “versus the field” level of predictions.
Why is Scheffler Such a Huge Favorite?
First, the numbers: FRACAS gives Scottie Scheffler a 43.2% chance to win the U.S. Open at Oakmont a likelihood more than seven times greater than the player with the next best shot – Bryson DeChambeau at 6.9%.
FRACAS would likely favor Scheffler in any tournament right now – such are the perks of being the best across so many of our golf leaderboards – but it thinks the three-time major tournament winner’s form and course layout present the possibility of a romp.
Oakmont is loaded with what FRACAS classifies as “long, difficult par 4s.” The course only has two reasonably short par 4s, the most famous of which is the 313-yard uphill 17th that features the extremely deep “Big Mouth” bunker to the right of the green.
For the most part, Oakmont is a distance and ball-striking test, and, well, FRACAS thinks Scheffler will nearly lap the field on those long, hard par 4s that comprise nearly half the course. It projects he’ll gain 0.342 strokes on the field per each of those holes, a figure that jibes with Scheffler’s existing strokes gained numbers this year (he gains 1.3 strokes per round on his approach shots, leading the PGA Tour by a mile).
You can expect to see Scheffler differentiating himself on these holes early: The hardest hole on the course at the 2016 U.S. Open – when the major was last held at Oakmont – was the 482-yard first, which doesn’t even play that long (it’s downhill) but still had more double bogeys (30) than birdies (29).
If you can expect anyone to reach and hold that green, it’s Scheffler.
However, it’s not just those holes, which are a premium at Oakmont. FRACAS sorts holes into eight buckets: short and long par 3s as well as par 4s and 5s broken out into three groups of length and difficulty each.
It projects Scheffler to gain the most strokes in every bucket except long par 3s, where it believes he’ll gain the fourth most in the field. (It has Sepp Straka tops on those holes. Keep an eye on him on the 288-yard, par-3 No. 8, which had just 24 birdies in 2016.)
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FRACAS thinks there’s a small group of contenders.
One way to think about it? At the Masters, the 25 top players by win probability had a combined 82% chance to win, according to the model. At the PGA Championship, the top 25 again had an 82% shot.
At Oakmont, the top 25 have an 88% chance. True dark horses rarely win majors, and you should not expect this golf course to produce such a champion.
The rest of the top contenders:
Bryson DeChambeau at 6.9%: The big masher’s placement here will surprise nobody. He’s won two U.S. Opens, including last year’s, and has the strength to muscle the ball out of Oakmont’s rough in a way few players can parallel. Joaquin Niemann at 6.0%: Niemann has been a star in LIV Golf, but I’m willing to disagree with FRACAS about his seriousness in this event. Until further notice, we should think of Niemann as a talented player who tears up dog tracks on an alternative tour but does not have the stuff to win majors. (However, he’s flashed ability against great fields in the distant past, like when he won the 2022 Genesis Open.) Jon Rahm at 4.1%: More LIV flavor here. Rahm had been on a run of being a nonfactor at majors since his LIV move, but he was tied for the PGA Championship lead on Sunday and seems to have worked his way back into pretty good form. Sepp Straka at 3.3%: Wow, how about that? The second-likeliest PGA Tour player to win this tournament isn’t Rory McIlroy or Xander Schauffele or Justin Thomas, but the big Austrian Straka. He has a win at the Truist Championship and a third-place finish at the Memorial tournament in his past three starts, though they’re sandwiched around a missed cut at the PGA Championship. Tommy Fleetwood at 2.7% Keegan Bradley at 2.5%Straka’s inclusion that high up the board speaks to something noticeable about the non-Scheffler PGA Tour stars right now: The big names aren’t playing that well.
Thomas was on a nice run earlier this season, but he’s had two lousy showings in a row. Collin Morikawa and Schauffele have not spent much time high up leaderboards this year. Patrick Cantlay is Patrick Cantlay, except he hasn’t been able to pair his underperformance in majors with elite results in other tour events this year.
And then there’s one other guy.
Where’s McIlroy on the List?
Way down it because he’s playing poorly. FRACAS has Rory McIlroy as the 24th-likeliest champion at the U.S. Open, with a win probability of 0.6%, nestled in between Patrick Cantlay and J.J. Spaun.
After the sugar high that must have been winning the Masters, McIlroy has been in poor form. His last two tournaments were a tie for 47th at the PGA Championship – he was never close to contending despite it being played at one of his favorite courses (Quail Hollow) – and a missed cut at last week’s Canadian Open, also a McIlroy favorite. He missed that cut by shooting 9-over par at a tournament with a winning score of minus-18.
FRACAS takes form into heavy account, and McIlroy is not playing like a guy with a serious chance to do any damage at Oakmont. After he won at Augusta, it was enticing to dream about all the damage he might do now that he was unburdened by a decade-plus quest to win another major and complete the career grand slam.
For the moment, however, it remains a dream for the 2011 champion, even one with the lowest score in U.S. Open history.
Any U.S. Open Dark Horses at Oakmont?
Not really. Only a mega-elite player can win this tournament.
But if you can’t resist a huge underdog, I’d take a look at Matt McCarty, the left-hander who’s been one of the better putters on the PGA Tour this year. Oakmont’s green complexes are brutal, and McCarty showed up nicely at the Masters with a T14.
Similarly, Patrick Reed is probably done contending seriously at majors, but maybe not. FRACAS gives Reed a 0.6% chance (21st) and McCarty a 0.4% chance (33rd) at the U.S. Open.
Carlos Ortiz has the ninth-best win probability at 2.2%. Believe it or not, this is a decent course fit for him and he’s played well on LIV lately, finishing fourth, 16th, seventh and 10th over his last four outings. He also had a win on the Asian Tour.
Where’s Dustin Johnson? No longer a force, he has just a 0.1% probability of winning this weekend.
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US Open Predictions: Odds, Value Plays and All the Picks Taking Aim on Scottie Scheffler Opta Analyst.
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