25 Thoughts on the 2025 U.S. Open

It’s time to go. This 125th U.S. Open feels as big and grand as it gets in professional golf. Every top player is here and the golf course is the pinnacle of a championship test. We know it’s hard. We know why it’s hard. The favorites are indisputable and obvious, aside from one persnickety driver issue, and we know why they’re the favorites. It’s a major that is remarkably settled, with minimal setup or conditioning controversies, reunification tension, or player uncertainty.

This is a major that feels as big as any, with a small amount left to dissect. In the run-up to a major, endless hours can be filled covering golf course quarrels and player dramas. There’s little of that left to ponder. The most compelling remaining questions center on the championship golf to come, which has been a rarity in recent years. And it’s time to get going.

With that, on the eve, here are 25 thoughts on the 2025 U.S. Open at Oakmont:

1. A majority opinion from the players is that this is the hardest golf course they will ever play. Scottie Scheffler has said it. Dustin Johnson has said it. Rory McIlroy said he shot 81 with two closing birdies a week ago. Which, for us onlookers, sounds like a must-see for the four days to come.

2. The course’s character, reputation, and history give cover to let the USGA truly dial up the punishment without apprehension or fear of player complaints. The players that have come before you have all been brutalized in the same way. Now it’s your turn. We’ve seen the USGA straddle the lines (and avoid them entirely) in recent years in favor of a controversy-free championship. Oakmont gives them reason to reply to any player wails with a shrug emoji instead of the red-faced one.

3. The star subject of the U.S. Open lead-up has been rough. Thick – maybe the thickest – rough is in Oakmont’s character, and it’s especially diabolical in the way it is maintained to stand up and promote balls sinking down.

4. It’s correctly argued that rough can limit skill and strategy. But it does not remove it. It does require skill, speed, strength – certain attributes the best in the world possess more of to do it better and with more predictable results. And there is some strategy on how to confront it from the clubs you put in the bag, the club you choose, and the swing you make. Here’s Justin Thomas from Monday’s practice round with amateur phenom Jackson Koivun: “Jackson had a lie on 15 today that we were kind of thinking is it a 6-iron? Open up a 6, or could you hit 7? He tried to hit 6-iron, and it looked like he could, and he hit it like four feet in front of him. It's not like every time you hit it in the rough, you're grabbing lob wedge and hit it out. You have to think, how far can I hit this?”

5. We've heard this debated repeatedly through the first two days here. The steeper, speedier swings may excel. JT expressed a partiality to hitting his 5-wood. Scottie is debating a 7-wood. Bryson DeChambeau’s wedge, with the length of a 7-iron, can get even more speed through the ball to get it out and running. So there are variables, skills, and choices in play here beyond just hack it out with lob wedge, which will happen plenty too!

{{inline-course}}

6. My colleague Joseph LaMagna suggested that Oakmont is the course that covers the history of American golf more than any other, from its links-inspired origins to the evolution of its now-rough-covered landscape to its history of tree planting and removal to its championship lineage. For more on Oakmont’s history, check out this episode of Designing Golf.

7. There are some links elements that remain, most notably with how much intrigue and fun exists here when the ball is on the ground. This is undoubtedly my favorite element of the golf course and its brilliance. There are repeated opportunities, and often demands, to land balls well short of greens and let the many natural slopes (and extremely modern agronomy) take over. Even Scotland’s own Richie Ramsay called it “links-inspired.” Collin Morikawa, who could initiate his own career slam chase this week, said the greens are more of a “links style” than others in American championship golf.

8. Landing balls short can be done on nine or so occasions throughout the round (Nos. 1, 4, 7, 8, 9 if left, 10, 12, 15, 16) with varying degrees of slopes and firm turf on approaches. The player can, or must, pick a spot well short of the green and try to feed or run the ball. Or, like Andy captured with Zac Blair on Tuesday, maybe just rap it with a putter from 120 yards at the first (I doubt we see anyone try it, but the possibility remains!).

9. Coming into view should be the pain in the extreme challenge and fun in trying to navigate it. Pain and fun. Sign us up for that championship combo.

10. What you need not indulge is the hollering about a 300-yard par-3, the 8th hole at Oakmont. Geoff Ogilvy suggested it was maybe the easiest or simplest of the par-3s on the course in 2016. Longtime caddie John Wood said, “It is not a tough, strategic hole…there is nowhere up there that is so penal that you make a mess if you miss.” Morikawa said, “Honestly, there's not a ton of strategy other than like hitting your driver within 15 yards or your 3-wood within 15 yards.” It’s a pretty basic challenge that will result in a lot of threes and fours. Get past the number on the sign (and read Garrett’s defense of long par 3s).

‍11. That’s as long as a par-3 gets in championship golf, but Oakmont, by design, is not an all-driver, all-the-time test for top pros. You might hit it less than 10 times. It’s reductive to suggest it’s simply hard because it’s long with thick rough and speedy greens. There’s so much more there, and as we’ve seen for a decade now, simply testing the best with length never works.

12. One player probably not hitting driver at the eighth will be Bryson DeChambeau. Given Rory McIlroy’s struggles recently with that club, Bryson enters the week as the best driver in the world. He seems completely comfortable with his game, his place in the sport, and the challenge of a golf course that might have pushed him into a tantrum in his prior era.

13. Bryson has been on the range with backpacks full of Krank driver heads, tinkering and toying. What might send another golfer insane with indecision is his happy place, even on the eve of majors. The title defense is fully within reach.

14. McIlroy has gone back to a TaylorMade Qi10 driver, an older model, after dabbling with the newer Qi35 in Canada last week. He noted that the driver tumult did not affect Scottie at the last major, so he should get over it and not make it a big deal either. But here we are, with far more uncertainty about his chances than the booming confidence ahead of the Masters and PGA.

15. The crowning slam achievement seems to have given way to a new set of nagging questions aimed at Rory: what’s next and how do you reset? It’s a little annoying to think about so soon after disposing of the 10-year “Is this the week the drought ends?” inquiries. A good annoyance to have, I imagine.

16. There is no uncertainty about the world No. 1. Every attribute the players list about what’s needed to succeed here describes Scottie Scheffler to a T. This covers both the physical and the mental, which will be examined in full at Oakmont.

17. What’s more impressive than Scottie hitting every fairway? “I think his mental game is better than anybody out here,” said Justin Thomas. “To be able to play with those expectations and to stay present as often as he has to me is maybe more impressive than even the golf he's playing.” So yeah, after taking a week off, unlike last year’s preamble to Pinehurst, he’s the favorite to win.

{{inline-article}}

18. Rory’s a question. Scottie’s an answer. Bryson’s an entertainer. The lurker, just below the attention on those three, is Jon Rahm, who called Oakmont “the truest representations of what a U.S. Open is all about.” He is up to No. 3 in the DataGolf rankings and soaring after the juices got flowing again at the PGA. It will be, however, an immense test of patience for the temperamental Spaniard.

19. Not lurking? It’s the 10-year anniversary of Jordan Spieth’s U.S. Open win, but he’s been relegated to an extra in the run-up to the first round.

20. Also not far away on the side of the stage is the “defending” champion, Dustin Johnson. He’s garnered more attention than Spieth because of that win last time around here in 2016, but is that more ceremony than substance?

21. Speaking of ceremony, if this truly is Phil Mickelson’s last ever U.S. Open, as he strongly suggested last week, it feels odd and incongruous to be going out with such a whimper. Arnold Palmer’s send-off here as a Western PA legend featured standing ovations on every green and a week of celebration. It would be unfortunate to never see Phil again at a U.S. Open and have this last one come while he seems partially embraced and accepted and not put on the stage that his career, including at this U.S. Open, deserves.

22. The dentist and former Oakmont caddie, Matt Vogt, is an incredible story coming out of the qualifying process for the truly open national championship. But there are fears that the media might Michael Block him into overexposure. He’s owning his 15 minutes, though, and leaning into it.

23. There will be an unexpected visitor on the board for the first 54 holes or so. Scott Piercy finished runner-up in 2016. Gregory Bourdy was there going to the weekend. Ryan Gerard led the PGA last month.

24. It will happen, but we’re also in a moment of, dare I say, “guaranteed” good leaderboards at the majors. We’re going on almost five straight years of top-ranked elite winners at the men’s majors. The last two years have been a bonanza. Are there certain guardrails now where the elite skills of the best in the world get rewarded even more at the majors, leaving little room for a breakthrough random? It’s difficult not to see two of Bryson, Scottie, Rory, and Rahm battling late on Sunday.

25. A subject of constant debate at the U.S. Open is the winning score. Will the “hardest course ever” return us to a number around even par? The golf course is unquestionably soft after heavy rains in the last week, with fairways playing significantly wider and even reports of a 3-wood or two landing soft and easy into a green on Monday. But the sun and winds came out a bit on Tuesday to continue the drying process. The rain of the past week, and the possibility of a little more coming this weekend, has probably shifted the chances from an over-par winner last week into an under-par number similar to DJ’s (4 under) last time here. The good news is that soon none of this guessing and speculation will matter. It’s time to go.

This piece originally appeared in the Fried Egg Golf newsletter. Subscribe for free and receive golf news and insight every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.