The U.S. Open is set to begin at sunrise on Thursday morning at Oakmont Country Club, just 25 minutes from Oakland.
The tournament will boast 156 of the best golfers in the world, with 11 former U.S. Open champions and another 12 who have finished as runners-up. It will also feature one former U.S. Open champion who won at Oakmont — 2016 champion Dustin Johnson. Players will struggle throughout the weekend, but there are both strong favorites and underdogs, all with a good chance of hoisting the trophy come Sunday evening.
Favorites
No. 1 favorite Scottie Scheffler
Scottie Scheffler is certainly the favorite coming into the first day of competition at Oakmont. Scheffler is currently No. 1 in the Official World Golf Ranking and has won three events over the last six weeks, including the 2025 PGA Championship.
Scheffler has also won The Masters twice and finished as runner-up in the 2022 U.S. Open and 2023 PGA Championship. Scheffler would become the first golfer since the OWGR became officially recognized to win the U.S. Open at Oakmont as the No. 1-ranked golfer.
No. 2 favorite Bryson DeChambeau
Bryson DeChambeau is another of the top favorites. The SMU product is a proven U.S. Open winner, winning the U.S. Open at Pinehurst Country Club last year as well as the 2020 tournament at Winged Foot Golf Club.
Dechambeau is part of the LIV Golf League, and despite his relatively unimpressive tournament success with LIV, he plays incredibly at the major tournaments. Dechambeau finished 15th when the U.S. Open was last at Oakmont in 2016, and his game has improved significantly since then.
No. 3 favorite Rory McIlroy
Rory McIlroy has already won a U.S. Open in his career — in 2011 at Congressional Country Club. At the beginning of the month he was the sure favorite for second place behind Scottie Scheffler. He then, unlike Scheffler, took on the RBC Canadian Open last week and he shot 9 over through 36 holes to miss the cut.
After completing his career Grand Slam with the 2025 Masters, McIlroy has struggled to put it all together for 18 holes at a time. Therefore, analysts have cooled on his chances for the tournament. He is likely to finish towards the top, but as time has gone on, his chances of hoisting the trophy keep dwindling. But McIlroy has finished in second place in both of the last two U.S. Opens.
Underdogs:
No. 1 underdog Collin Morikawa
Collin Morikawa enters the tournament as neither a longshot nor a big favorite to win. He has yet to win a U.S. Open but won the 2020 PGA Championship and 2021 Open Championship trophies, both in his first entry into the tournament.
He now will partake in his seventh U.S. Open, and has only failed to make the cut once this season, doing so at the Zurich Classic in late April. While not the most likely winner, the Cal product is ready to compete for his first professional win since 2023.
No. 2 underdog Joaquín Niemann
Joaquín Niemann is destroying the competition in the LIV Golf League. He has four tournament wins in 2025, including last week at LIV Golf Virginia, where he beat Anirban Lahiri and Graeme McDowell by one stroke.
He enters the tournament playing as impressively as Scheffler, and will prove a tough competition for the entire field. The only question is whether he can acclimate to the 72-hole schedule as opposed to LIV’s 54-hole format.
No. 3 underdog Wyndham Clark
Wyndham Clark comes into the tournament as a longshot to win. He has missed two of four cuts when at the U.S. Open. He is, however, the 2023 U.S. Open champion and is still capable of playing golf at a high level.
While he’s no longer the third-best golfer in the world — which was his career high in OWGR — Clark can still play competitively and should provide tough competition and interesting moments during his time at Oakmont. If the course plays as hard as players and the media say it has, Clark will have a shot to excel and pull out a win under tough circumstances.
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