Show notes
Six Men Have Completed the Career Grand Slam. Scotty Scheffler Is Going for Seven.
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Jack Nicklaus. Gary Player. Gene Sarazen. Ben Hogan. Tiger Woods. Rory McIlroy. Six men in the history of golf have won all four professional majors. Scotty Scheffler has the Masters, the PGA Championship, and the Open Championship. The US Open is the only piece missing — and that's strange on its face, because everything about Scotty's game, the iron play especially, seems built for exactly this tournament.
Where Scotty's Game Actually Stands
Scotty still leads the PGA Tour in greens in regulation, so the idea that his irons have abandoned him isn't accurate. But what was an untouchable superpower has become merely very good. He's dropped more than 100 spots in average proximity to the hole, and less than 22 percent of his fairway approach shots are landing inside 15 feet this season — 148th out of 152 players on tour. Despite that, he still leads the PGA Tour in strokes gained total, scoring average, and birdie average, and has become a legitimately good putter — a top-20 putter on tour, which would have been almost unthinkable a few years ago. The takeaway, in Brandel Chamblee's words — he's not unbeatable anymore, but he's still the man to beat. Since 2020, Scheffler is 129 under par in majors; the next closest player isn't within 50 shots of that mark.
History suggests players who complete the grand slam tend to do it quickly — three of the six did it on their first attempt, including Tiger in 2000. Rory is the outlier, needing eleven tries. Phil Mickelson, Sam Snead, and Arnold Palmer all retired without ever completing theirs.
Why Shinnecock Might Not Care About a Slow Start
Scotty has had a pattern this season of struggling out of the gate in majors before grinding back into contention. But Shinnecock might neutralize that concern entirely. Brooks Koepka opened with a 75 in 2018 and still won. Dustin Johnson, the best player in the world that year, blew a four-shot 36-hole lead — the first player in nearly a century to do that at a US Open — and still wasn't out of contention afterward. This course is a marathon. Pars feel like birdies. Survival matters more than a hot start.
One staggering number puts it all in context — of 654 players who have started a US Open at Shinnecock, only three have ever finished under par.
The Picks — Without Scotty and Rory
With the top two taken off the board as the presumed favorites, Trey and Justin each name three players who could make real noise this week.
Justin's picks: John Rahm, whose LIV form has been dominant and translated directly into a tied-for-second finish at the PGA Championship, with an excellent US Open record and the best bogey-avoidance mark in the field since 2009. Xander Schauffele, the all-time leader in US Open scoring average with nine consecutive top-15 finishes — a streak only Jack Nicklaus has topped since World War II. And Chris Gotterup, a two-time winner this season whose power off the tee fits a US Open landscape that increasingly rewards distance.
Trey's picks: Xander Schauffele for the same reasons. Matt Fitzpatrick, who has three wins this season and already has a US Open title on an old-school, brutal course — Brookline in 2022, where he also won his US Amateur. And Cam Young, the Long Island native who broke through with his first PGA Tour win last year and was a standout for Team USA at the Ryder Cup at Bethpage.
And one fun, purely historical nugget — the last three US Opens at Shinnecock were each won by the player ranked ninth in the world at the time. This week's ninth-ranked player in the world is reigning US Open champion JJ Spaun. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com
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