Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm, sleeper contenders and more top storylines

Eight years after Brooks Koepka conquered Shinnecock Hills during a week when no player finished under the par, the U.S. Open returns to one of the toughest venues in the sport.

With its relentless wind and exposed greens, Shinnecock is once again set up to give the best players in the world fits as it tests every part of their game, especially their mental approach. Whomever stands atop the leaderboard come Sunday afternoon will have gone through one of the most formidable gauntlets in golf.

Here are five storylines ahead of the year’s third major championship.

What do you expect from Scottie Scheffler this week as he goes for a career Grand Slam?

Schlabach: Sure, Scheffler has won only once on tour this season, and that victory came in his first start of the season in the American Express on Jan. 25. But he has been awfully close to winning on multiple occasions since, finishing second three times and third twice. He has finished in the top 25 in each of his 12 starts.

Scheffler still leads the tour in strokes gained: total (2.162) and tee to green (1.696) and is third around the green (.535) and fourth off the tee (.657). Obviously, he’s still playing very good golf. Even his putting, which has been his Achilles’ heel in the past, has been solid. He ranks 19th in strokes gained: putting (.466).

But here’s the difference between this season and the previous four, in which he picked up 19 victories and four major championships: According to stats guru Justin Ray, Scheffler has hit 21.2% on his approach shots from the fairway on par-4s and par-5s inside 15 feet or less this season. From 2022 to 2025, he hit 32.5% of those shots inside 15 feet.

It’s a razor’s edge between winning and finishing in the top five. Given Scheffler’s success in majors and his magical hands around greens, I’d be shocked if he’s not a contender.

“I’d say I feel like I’ve been close most of the year,” Scheffler said Tuesday. “I feel like I just haven’t been as sharp as I needed to be. I think the margins in this game are so small. For me to be winning a lot of tournaments, you’ve got to just be really, really sharp. I feel like maybe I’ve just been a touch dull because I think statistically I’m maybe leading the FedEx Cup. I think I’m leading the strokes gained statistics, so by no means is it a bad year. Is it up to the play I’ve had the previous couple of years? Probably not, but it’s not far off.”

Plus, Scheffler’s 30th birthday is Sunday, so maybe he’ll win a U.S. Open trophy.

Uggetti: The best version of Scheffler could and, arguably, should plot his way around Shinnecock perfectly. The golf course demands exacting play and no one can do that better than Scheffler.

But Scheffler, in the U.S. Open recently, and throughout his season this year, has seemingly had issues when conditions become slightly unpredictable. At the Memorial, he had an outburst directed at his caddie Ted Scott after they adjusted incorrectly for the wind.

And if there’s one thing that Scheffler will have to deal with this week at Shinnecock, it is the wind. It will blow hard, especially Thursday. I will be fascinated to see how he responds when things don’t exactly go his way. By the end of 72 holes, that might be the difference between another high-but-not-high-enough finish and the career grand slam.

Who are some sleepers you could see contending this week?

Schlabach: Few prognosticators would have picked J.J. Spaun at Oakmont Country Club last year, so it’s certainly possible that a sleeper pulls off another upset at Shinnecock Hills.

Remember that each of the past four U.S. Open winners were ranked outside the top 10 of the Official World Golf Ranking: Matt Fitzpatrick (No. 18 in 2022), Wyndham Clark (No. 32 in 2023), Bryson DeChambeau (No. 38 in 2024) and Spaun (No. 25 in 2025).

Shinnecock Hills is as close as it gets in the U.S. to a links-style course you’ll find in Scotland or Ireland, so the winner is going to need patience, soft hands around the greens, and the ability to be creative with the putter.

Given the forecast for strong winds, especially in Thursday’s opening round, and the course’s diabolical green complexes, I wouldn’t be stunned to see someone like Robert MacIntyre, Alex Noren or Sepp Straka climb into the mix.

MacIntyre won the Scottish Open and Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, so he’s more than comfortable playing on firm, wind-swept conditions. He missed the cut at the Masters and PGA Championship but was solo second in last year’s U.S. Open, two strokes behind Spaun.

Keeping tee shots in the fairways is also going to be paramount. The fairways are wider than they were eight years ago, but the rough is about five inches high and thick. Golfers are going to have to hit it straight off the tee or they’re going to be in trouble. That brings golfers like Aaron Rai and Si Woo Kim into the picture.

Kim leads the tour with eight top-10s this season. He’s third in driving accuracy (69.8%) and sixth in approach (.690). Unfortunately, he’s 101st in strokes gained: putting (-.098), but maybe he’ll find a hot putter the way Rai did during the PGA Championship.

Uggetti: OK, hear me out. How about Viktor Hovland? I know that sounds wild given that he has fallen off the map since he dominated the playoffs a few years ago, but the reality is that he is a feast-or-famine player, and right now, it looks as if we might be exiting the famine stage.

This season had been disappointing; he had two missed cuts and seven finishes outside the top 30. But then Hovland took a month off and managed a third-place finish at the RBC Canadian Open last week.

If we have come to learn anything about Hovland, it’s that you almost never know when he’s going to be back in contention. Last week was a positive sign — he ranked first in strokes gained: approach and 12th in putting. At Shinnecock this week, both of those stats might be the recipe for success.

Which golfer has a good chance to become a first-time major winner this week?

Schlabach: If hitting fairways and greens, making par and avoiding big numbers is the test this week, I could see Russell Henley climbing up the leaderboard and winning his first major.

Henley is ranked No. 5 in the world rankings after picking up his sixth PGA Tour victory in the Charles Schwab Challenge on May 28.

He leads the tour in driving accuracy (71.9%) and scrambling (69.5%), which is a recipe for success at Shinnecock Hills.

Henley has learned to play well in the majors. He has six top-10s in the past 11 majors, including a tie for third in the Masters in April. He had back-to-back top-10s in the past two U.S. Opens and Open Championships.

Plus, Henley was a co-leader after the first round of the 2018 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills. He tied for 25th.

Uggetti: I could throw in Hovland here too but let’s talk about Tommy Fleetwood instead. The last time Fleetwood played at this golf course in 2018, he shot a 63 in the final round (when absolutely nobody was going low) and had a short putt for 62, which would have gotten him into a playoff with Koepka.

A lot has transpired since that U.S. Open, but Fleetwood has yet to win a major. This week presents an opportunity he might not get again. This golf course clearly suits his game, which is built upon some of the best ballstriking in the world. Only six players have gained more strokes than Fleetwood this season and his short game has been the fifth best on Tour. Around Shinnecock’s greens, that skill will be crucial.

In some ways, what might separate Fleetwood from another top-10 (his seventh this year) and a win, probably will come down to his putting, which is easily his biggest weakness (he is 69th on tour). It would not be a surprise to see Fleetwood in contention come Sunday, but this time around at Shinnecock, it probably will require him to produce something even better than he did eight years ago.

What are you expecting to see from the LIV golfers this week?

Schlabach: I’ll have my eyes on two LIV Golf League stars, DeChambeau and Jon Rahm, this week.

DeChambeau is coming off back-to-back missed cuts in majors and seemed lost, especially, at the Masters. The two-time U.S. Open winner was spotted testing new TaylorMade prototype drivers on the range at Shinnecock Hills earlier this week. It’s unclear if he’s still using a 3D-printed 5 iron he used at Augusta National.

This feels like a tournament in which Rahm should be near the top of the leaderboard. He has already won twice in the LIV Golf League this season. He was runner-up in the PGA Championship on a course that played very difficult. He won the 2021 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines with a 72-hole score of 6 under.

Rahm finished in the top 10 in three of the past five majors and is playing like one of the best golfers in the world again.

But LIV Golf’s uncertain future has to be weighing on their minds, so it will be interesting to see how locked in they are this week.

How do you think Shinnecock will play?

Schlabach: Whether or not the United States Golf Association can maintain control of the greens will be the second-biggest storyline this week behind Scheffler trying to complete the career Grand Slam.

Frankly, the USGA didn’t do it in 2004 or 2018.

Shinnecock Hills is arguably the most difficult test in men’s professional golf. Going back to the final round in 1986, the field scoring average has been at least two strokes over par in every round (13 consecutive rounds), according to Elias Sports Bureau.

“It’s a great golf course,” Rory McIlroy said. “I think if everything is going the way everyone wants it in terms of weather, setup, I think it’s the best championship test in the country. I think it tests all aspects of the game: driving, iron play, you need to have your wits about you on the greens. It’s a lot of strategy, thoughtfulness.”

The USGA is going to cut four greens higher than the rest because they’re more exposed to the winds. There’s a slight chance of rain Thursday and Friday, but chances are that the greens are going to become firmer and dryer.

It’s up to the USGA to determine how fast they’re going to get.

“Look, it’s a golf course where it can turn very quickly,” McIlroy said. “You get a day like yesterday with a lot of wind and dry, clear conditions like this, and I think we’re just going to have to be mindful of that as the week goes on.”

Uggetti: Whatever your idea of “hard” is, imagine something much harder. There’s a reason this venue is considered to be among the toughest tests in golf. But though a place like Oakmont imposes difficulty with its long rough and fast greens, Shinnecock does it with the elements.

The wind is going to be a major factor this week as the forecast calls for some pretty gusty days, especially Thursday and Friday, which are supposed to feature gusts close to 40 mph. I talked to one caddie Monday who said it was steadily blowing as early as their 6 a.m. practice round. He noted that the USGA will have its hands full this week keeping an eye on greens because of how severe the wind will be and some greens — like 7 or 11 are exposed in such a way that could make them close to unplayable.

While some players are wary of the golf course getting close to the edge, others aren’t worried. Some, like Matt Fitzpatrick, are even preparing to welcome and embrace the chaos.

“For me personally, I want it to get as dry and firm as possible, as U.S. Opens do, and just see where that takes us,” Fitzpatrick said.

This place does not need extremely long rough and extremely fast greens to be hard, but the rough is still at five feet high and the greens will only get faster come the weekend should the USGA choose to really turn it up.

“Hopefully we can get the greens to firm up over the weekend, and we’ll see some of the greatness of Shinnecock where the shots in are so important to hit these small areas,” Adam Scott said. “Then you’ll get a great champion.”