U.S. Open 2017 picks and predictions: Jordan Spieth, Dustin Johnson favored for another national title

It seems like we were just watching Sergio Garcia pour in that putt at the 18th hole after sunset in Augusta. But the Spaniard has been strutting around in his green jacket for two months now and that means the second men’s major of the season is here.

The U.S. Open tees off Thursday from Erin Hills, a new venue to the national championship rota and one that almost no player in the field has experience playing under competitive conditions. Players, caddies, media, and maybe even the USGA are trying to figure out what this public course is all about in the middle of Wisconsin. What kind of game will it favor? Will we avoid the controversy, or disaster, similar to the last time the U.S. Open visited a new venue, Chambers Bay, in 2015?

With the course a bit of an unknown, that makes an already unpredictable major that much tougher to get a read on. But we march on with our thoughts and predictions for the 117th U.S. Open.

Emily: Francesco Molinari is 80/1. The 34-year-old Italian is 17th in the world rankings, and with just one missed cut, four top-10 finishes and seven other top-25s in 14 events, he’s enjoying his best season on the PGA Tour by far. He does not hit the ball far off the tee (ranked 101st on tour with a 290-yard average) but ranks second in driving accuracy, which will be key considering Erin Hills’ nasty rough that awaits those who stray from the fairways.

Brendan: I will go way down the board to 200/1 and take Peter Uihlein as my sleeper pick here. He’s obviously a blue-chip prospect that most who follow golf closely have known about for years. He plays sparingly on the PGA Tour, but has not missed a cut in four starts and posted three top-25s. Uihlein seems completely comfortable in his own skin so maybe there’s less pressure to live up to some hype or benchmark that we tend to put on former top prospects. It’s a long shot, but I could see his game putting him in contention here on Sunday.

If you want me to go with a more reasonable choice, I might take Billy Horschel at 80/1. Billy Ho, who had been in a lull, may be hitting one of those notorious hot streaks he catches after winning in Dallas and contending last week in Memphis.

Kyle: Ross Fisher’s available at 200-1, which seems low for a top-50 player in the world in relatively good form. He’s had a slew of nice high finishes at big tournaments this year, and has experience being in contention on a Sunday at the U.S. Open. Those are favorable indicia alone. Hard to tell how this course sets up for too much of anyone with the weather set to come, and I don’t think he’ll win this week — but I think the Englishman is a good bet to linger in the top 15 or so.

Emily: Bubba Watson — The two-time Masters champion may be rounding into some type of form in three of his last five starts (T9, MC, T5, MC, T6), but he has missed the cut in half of his 10 U.S. Open starts, with his best finish a T5 way back in 2007 and a second-worst T51 last year. Also — and we can’t stress this enough — the forecast calls for rain this week at Erin Hills and any Bubba-o-phile knows how well the tightly strung Watson enjoys “water on the club face, bro,” a situation that sent the bombs-away southpaw to an early exit from Valhalla in 2014.

Brendan: I’ll always take Bubba here. His mental game and the U.S. Open are just never a good mix. This may be a different test but I’m still going to stay away. Also — and I know this is allegedly a perfect setup for him — should we be at all concerned at Rory McIlroy coming off an injury and with a new putter in his bag? No? Okay.

Kyle: Nah, I’ll take the bait. I’ve got concerns about Rory’s return this week. Lots of equipment changes, the injury, the layoff — it’s all reason to be concerned ahead of golf’s ultimate pressure-cooker. If there is a current weakness or flaw in one’s game, a USGA layout will find it. I won’t be on the grounds at Erin Hills until Friday afternoon, and I won’t be shocked if Rory’s already off to Cromwell, Conn., (what?) at that point.

Kyle: As the resident U.S Open stan here, yes, yes, hell yes. This is the best major of the year. Please send me your hate mail now.

For whatever reason as a young player and through my college years, this was the one event I always dreamt about playing — perhaps because it seemed attainable. As a washed, never-play-anymore college player, I am still theoretically three rounds of catching lightning in a bottle from playing in the US Open. That’s super cool. As much flak as the USGA gets for course setup, it should get equal praise for making its signature event open and accessible to the people in every way. Exclusion sucks. Hi, Augusta.

As for the layout and the style of play specifically, I love it. We watch these amazing dudes tear up tracks every week, there’s nothing wrong at all about watching the best in the world have to chop it around like ams for one weekend a year. Carnage is fun. I’d watch the third round of the 2004 event at Shinnecock on a loop for hours.

Sure, sure — perhaps your thoughts are different when you’re trying to make a living out there week to week. I’d be pissed as hell if I had to hit out of that cabbage left and right of the fairway, too. But, I’m not playing this week. I’m watching.

Give me all of this you can.

Brendan: I do not prefer the style and scoring but I enjoy it, if that makes sense. My preference is to watch the style of The Open or the scoring movement of the Masters. But I am perfectly happy to have the U.S. Open, which can be a more tedious march to par, one week out of the year. It’s fun to have players and fans and analysts get worked up about some course minutiae. The screaming, yelling, and carnage is great drama, so long as you’re not involved and watching from afar.

It does not seem like we will have that kind of carnage this year. Erin Hills, by all accounts, is a fair test. The USGA, of course, can always get in its own way and trick up some setting or have another rules mishap. But I think this will be a relatively controversy-free week and one with low-ish scores.

Brendan: I think we could have score similar to the Masters, where 9-under was good enough to get in the playoff. Jordan Spieth said he envisioned a winning score from 5- to 10-under. I think the rain will make it a little easier and from all accounts, these greens are reasonable speeds and should roll true as they’re the best conditioned putting surfaces ever at a U.S. Open. Four par-5s also give the best in the world some cushion to post a number. I think the winner gets to 9-under, which is pretty dang low for a U.S. Open.

Emily: Phil once again will not win the only major title he needs to complete the career grand slam, but that’s because he won’t play. Should the heavens open up on Thursday long enough for Mickelson to parachute into Erin Hills, he will still leave Wisconsin empty-handed, and probably before the weekend, because a guy renowned for his meticulous preparation has not seen the course, let alone played a single practice round on the newest U.S. Open track. And should he actually find himself in contention, his concession that seeing himself atop the leaderboard in Sunday’s FedEx St. Jude Classic finale “shook” him as if he had “never won before, as if I was a rookie” and was “not as mentally focused as I needed to be” is certainly cause for concern for the nearly 47-year-old five-time major champ who hasn’t won a PGA Tour event for four years.

Brendan: In a word — No.

Kyle: This is a weather question largely, so I’ll pass. Not following the computer models this week. Four-hour Thursday morning delay is what he’d need!

Brendan: I know I floated him as a possible bust this week but the more sensible prediction is to expect big things from Rory. I think he’s in contention again at a U.S. Open, a major where he’s had his struggles at times. It’s long. It is now wet. Rory seems to be in love with it and feel like he’s got a big advantage with his driving “skill,” as he repeatedly reminds us. While his body may be shaky after injuries have stunted his season, he seems to be relishing this particular U.S. Open challenge and that always makes him dangerous. I think he finishes inside the top five.

Kyle: Quick thing, don’t be mistaken: There’s no player more talented in the game right now than Rory McIlroy. I still think that’s inarguable. Having said that, I think both golf media members and fans give Rory a pass to compete at times where it’s unrealistic. Rory’s everything we want in a modern player, the most suited of the lot to fill the largest portion of Tiger’s shadow. But injury layoffs matter. Equipment changes take time to become comfortable. I think he wins at Quail Hollow later in the year. This week? There’s just too much up in the air to make that call right now.

Emily: Sure, the adage goes “beware the injured/sick golfer,” and Rory has proclaimed his love for the course (“It’s perfect”) that should, with its wide fairways and potentially soft conditions, fit him like a golf glove. But the newlywed with a nagging rib condition has been limited to five PGA Tour events this year prior to the Open and is lacking — as his brother-in-infirmities, Tiger Woods, is wont to say — in competitive reps. Then there’s the issue of becoming familiar with his bag of new TaylorMade gear, including a new putter, and that did not go so well the last time he changed sticks. Still, though he missed the cut last year at Oakmont (and but for his 2011 runaway victory, the U.S. Open has not been his most successful event), Rors will likely make the cut after a shaky start and could find himself hovering around the top 10.

Emily: One of the only players with competitive experience at Erin Hills (2011 U.S. Amateur), the two-time major champion can grind it out with the best of ‘em. His short game is stellar (he leads the tour in strokes gained/approach to the green), but his traditional strong suit, his flat stick, is suspect, as he has dropped from second last year in SG/putting to 40th. It would not be a shock if Spieth finishes out of the top 10 this week.

Brendan: Like Rory, it’s hard to pick against DJ and make a case for why he won’t do well. Maybe you’re scared off by whatever that was at Memorial? He’s stepped back a little bit since his tumble at the Masters, but that pre-Masters pace was Tiger-like and impossible to sustain. It’s so hard to say any of these guys — DJ, Day, Rory — will have some middling finish when the course characteristics and their games seem like such natural fits. DJ gets another U.S. Open top-10 but does not defend his title.

Emily: A top-10 result would be par for the course for Day, who owns five such finishes (including second place in 2011 and 2013) in the six times he has played this event. The former world No. 1 has only two top-10s this season, a couple of MCs, and some ugly results (T64 at the Genesis Open and T60 at The Players), but that could work in his favor since he enters the week flying under the radar.

Brendan: I am not going with one of the bombers at this alleged bomber’s paradise. Instead, I’m rolling with the 2015 champion, Jordan Spieth. I think he’ll putt out of his mind on these perfect greens. And course architecture guru Andy Johnson of the Fried Egg noted this week that the uneven lies of the natural terrain of this course seem to play in perfectly to Spieth’s self-proclaimed comfort hitting from such uneven spots. He thinks he has an advantage with this kind of terrain and cited Augusta and Kapalua as examples. If it’s possible, I think he’s a little under the radar, too, as most of the coverage fixates on the crop of big bombers. I like Spieth to take his second national championship in three years.

Emily: A dad for the second time just days before he begins his U.S. Open defense, Johnson is everyone’s prohibitive favorite to become the first U.S. Open champion since Curtis Strange in 1989 to go back-to-back. So I’m jumping on the bandwagon and bringing the Kay Curse with me. While his putting can be problematic, Johnson has the big-hitting ability to tame a 7,700-plus-yard track and (according to swing coach Butch Harmon) a set of humungous plums that serve him well in otherwise pressure-packed situations. He is coming off an unsightly missed cut at the Memorial (78-74) and has not set the golfing world on fire since missing the Masters after that accident on the stairs, but with three wins this season and four top-10 finishes (including last year’s W) in the past five years at his national championship, why not DJ?

Kyle: Of the favorites, I don’t love anyone this week. I’d take the field. DJ’s childbirth might have him short on prep and I don’t like obvious picks. Rory’s injury, Jason’s very meh year, Spieth’s less-than-great putting of late. I can perhaps come up with a logical reason to pick Sergio this week to win his second straight, but I think I’m barred by statute from doing that. So!

If we’re looking for an emerging long-hitter coming off a nice Masters showing with major-level game, give me Thomas Pieters this week. I think Erin Hills sets up well for him. Can he hold up through the mental test of the event? That’s a tougher question.