2025 US Open: The Punter's in-depth Preview

• Read Matt Cooper's US Open player profiles piece here

• Read Dave Tindall's US Open 10 year trends piece here

• Superb Scheffler fairly priced at 3/14.00

• In-form and consistent Straka a strong contender 

• Get a free bet for every first round birdie your US Open selection scores. T&Cs apply.

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Watch Golf...Only Bettor US Open 2025 preview

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Tournament History

First staged back in 1895 and won by Englishman, Horace Rawlins, who picked up a whopping $150 after posting a 36-hole total of 173 (rounds of 91 and 82), the US Open has been a 72-hole stroke play event since 1898.

The US Open is a nomadic championship staged by the often heavily criticised United States Golf Association. It used to follow the US Masters as the second major of the year but after a reworking of the PGA Tour schedule in 2019, which saw the US PGA Championship moved from August to May, it's now the third of four.

This year's edition is staged at the magnificent Oakmont Country Club. 

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Venue

Oakmont Country Club, Oakmont, Pennsylvania.

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Course Details

Par 70, 7,372 yards 

Oakmont was founded in 1903. It's the only course designed by Henry Fownes and it was the first golf course to be recognised as a National Historic Landmark.

Widely regarded as one of the toughest courses in the world, Oakmont has staged this event on nine previous occasions (more than any other venue).

Oakmont was the scene of arguably the best round in major history in 1973 when Johnny Miller fired the first ever 63 in a major championship to win by a stroke and it produced a memorable renewal in 1994 when Ernie Els won in extra time.

Els, Colin Montgomerie and Loren Roberts all played off for the title over 18 holes on the Monday and when Els and Roberts finished ahead of Monty after 18 holes, Els eventually won with a par at the second extra hole.

The next time it was used, in 2007, Angel Cabrera won with a five-over-par total and Dustin Johnson won here on the last occasion it was used, nine years ago.

It was DJ's first major success, and he finished on four-under-par, but he was one of only four players to break par for the week and the course played soft that year after multiple rain delays.

In an attempt to restore Oakmont to its original links-style state, the course was extensively reworked by Tom Fazio before the 2007 edition.

Almost every tree was removed to completely transform the course and it's been reworked again prior to this year's renewal. This time by restoration specialist, Gill Hanse, in 2023.

Using old photographs and plans, Hanse's team have returned the course as close as possible to the original Fownes layout. Bunkers have been removed and replaced but the biggest change to the course is to the greens, which have been restored to their original, very large, state.

In addition to providing a brilliant interview with the 2006 US Open champ, Geoff Ogilvy, who describes the venue with eloquence, the Fried Egg video below, has plenty of detail on the restoration, and is well worth a watch.

Oakmont is famous for its Church Pew bunkers that come in to play on the third and fourth holes, its narrow fairways and brutal rough but mainly for its severely sloping, large, lightning fast poa annua greens.

According to the @USGA the green speeds for the @usopengolf at Oakmont will be between 14' 5" and 14' 9" on the Stimpmeter. The primary rough is dense and uniformed at five inches.

-- Todd Lewis (@ToddLewisGC) June 5, 2025

To give you a flavour of the course, here are a few famous old Oakmont quotes...

"There's only one course in the country where you could step out right now -- right now -- and play the US Open, and that's Oakmont." Lee Trevino.

"That golf course is going to be one of the toughest tests that we've ever played in a US Open, especially if it's dry, it will be unreal because those greens are so severe." Tiger Woods prior to '07.

"You can hit 72 greens in the Open at Oakmont and not come close to winning." Arnold Palmer.

Trevino once claimed that every time he two-putted a green he knew he was passing someone and my favourite quote of all, is that Sam Snead is said to have once commented that he tried to mark his ball on one of Oakmont's greens but the coin slid off!

The US Open is staged at different venues each year so the scores do vary, although four of the last five winners have won with a six-under-par total, but we may get our first over-par winning total since Brooks Koepka won at Shinnecock in +1 back in 2018.

There were three rain delays on day one in 2016, so the course played softer and easier than it had in 2007 when all 11 amateurs in the field missed the cut.

Only six men shot less than 10-over-par for the week 18 years ago and only two players broke par on day four. In fact, only four men shot par or better on day four!

As a measure of how ridiculously tough it was in '07, Adam Scott arrived at Oakmont in form having finished sixth at the Players, fifth at the Memorial Tournament and seventh at the St. Jude Classic but he failed to make a single birdie as he recorded rounds of 76 and 82 to miss the cut.

Oakmont starts and finishes with two really tough par fours. The first averaged 4.45 nine years ago and was the hardest hole on the course and the 18^th, which ranked sixth, averaged 4.32. The winner, Dustin Johnson, was one of only two men to birdie the finishing hole in round four in 2016.

Every hole averaged over-par in 2007 and in the softer conditions in 2016, only four holes - the drivable par four 17^th (3.88), the par five fourth (4.97), the par three 13^th (2.99), and the par four 14^th (3.99) - averaged below par.

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Weather Forecast

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TV Coverage

Live on Sky Sports all four days, starting at 12:30 on Thursday in the UK.

Last 12 US Open Winners with Pre-event Exchange Prices

2024 - Bryson DeChambeau -6 25.024/1
2023 - Wyndham Clark -10 120.0119/1
2022 - Matt Fitzpatrick -6 32.031/1
2021 - Jon Rahm -6 12.011/1
2020 - Bryson DeChambeau -6 30.029/1
2019 - Gary Woodland -13 110.0109/1
2018 - Brooks Koepka +1 34.033/1
2017 - Brooks Koepka -16 60.059/1
2016 - Dustin Johnson -4 17.016/1
2015 - Jordan Spieth -5 11.010/1
2014 - Martin Kaymer -9 50.049/1
2013 - Justin Rose +1 28.027/1

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What Will it Take to Win the US Open?

Here are the traditional stats for the top five and ties at the last two US Opens at Oakmont, together with limited stats for the playoff protagonists back in 1994.

2016 US Open
1 Dustin Johnson -4 (Driving Distance 1st, Driving Accuracy 18th, Greens In Regulation 1st, Scrambling 1st, Putting Average 43rd)
T2 Jim Furyk -1 (DD 67th, DA 10th, GIR 5th, SCR 10th, PA 21st)
T2 Shane Lowry -1 (DD 15th, DA 6th, GIR 12th, SCR 6th, PA 27th)
T2 Scott Piercy -1 (DD 13th, DA 40th, GIR 14th, SCR 3rd, PA 24th)
T5 Sergio Garcia EV (DD 5th, DA 40th, GIR 14th, SCR 5th, PA 44th)
T5 Branden Grace EV (DD 7th, DA 47th, GIR 9th, SCR 35th, PA 19th)

2007 US Open
1 Angel Cabrera +5 (DD 2nd, DA 48th, GIR 3rd, SCR 40th, PA 10th)
T2 Jim Furyk +6 (DD 44th, DA 2nd, GIR 17th, SCR 18th, PA 7th)
T2 Tiger Woods +6 (DD 11th, DA 25th, GIR 1st, SCR 8th, PA 47th)
4 Niclas Fasth +7 (DD 6th, DA 59th, GIR 49th, SCR 7th, PA 2nd)
T5 David Toms +9 (DD 44th, DA 39th, GIR 3rd, SCR 58th, PA 16th)
T5 Bubba Watson +9 (DD 10th, DA 31st, GIR 8th, SCR 17th, PA 17th)

1994 US Open
1 Ernie Els -4 (DD 5th, DA 43rd, GIR 1st, PA 44th)
T2 Colin Montgomerie -4 (DD 27th, DA 15th, GIR 18th, PA 1st)
T2 Loren Roberts -4 (DD 51st, DA 23rd, GIR 23rd, PA 2nd)

The rough has been brutal here in each of the last three US Opens staged so it's a little surprising to see that Driving Accuracy hasn't been a key stat.

The last three US Open winners here have all ranked highly for Driving Distance and Greens In Regulation but not especially high for Putting Average, although that would have been different had Colin Montgomerie or Loren Roberts won the playoff 31 years ago.

Although the Championship is nomadic, given the courses are generally set up similarly year after year, in addition to looking at the stats at Oakmont, it's worth a quick look at the results over the last decade, so here are the average rankings of the last ten US Open winners in all the traditional main categories.

Driving Distance - 6.7
Driving Accuracy - 23.5
Greens In Regulation - 4.3
Scrambling - 11.9
Putting Average - 14.4

There have only been Strokes Gained figures produced for the last six US Opens and as is the case most weeks, the most important metric has been SG: Tee-to-Green.

Here are the average Strokes Gained rankings, with the average number of strokes gained in each SG category by the winners over the last six years.

SG Tee - 6.7 (ranking average) 1.0603 (strokes gained average)
SG Approach - 13.5 (ranking average) 1.3095 (strokes gained average)
SG Around the Green - 13.7 (ranking average) 0.917 (strokes gained average)
SG Tee to Green - 3.8 (ranking average) 3.2715 (strokes gained average)
SG Putting - 17.7 (ranking average) 1.1192 (strokes gained average)

Putting has been the least important SG stat over the last six years with only three of the six winners ranking any better than 20^th and Strokes Gained: Tee to Green has been by far the most important stat.

That's not surprising given how important a stat Greens In Regulation has been over the last 10 years.

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Class Act likely to prevail

This is the 10^th time that Oakmont has hosted the US Open and Pennsylvanian native, Sam Parks Jnr, who won here in 1935, is the only one of the previous nine winners not to have won multiple major championships, although the last three winners were all winning their first here.

Ernie Els was winning his first major here in 1994 and his first PGA Tour title, but he went on to win this event again in 1997, as well as two Open Championships.

Angel Cabrera caused a bit of a surprise in 2007, but he went on to take the US Masters in 2009 and DJ won at Augusta four years after he won here.

In addition to those already mentioned, legends of the game, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Tommy Armour and Larry Nelson have all tasted success here.

Nicklaus' victory at Oakmont, in 1962, was his first win on the PGA Tour and he beat Arnold Palmer in a playoff.

In addition to the host of big names that have won the US Open at Oakmont, Bobby Jones won the 1925 US Amateur here and Gene Sarazen and Sam Snead both won the US PGA Championship here. The cream really does appear to rise to the top at Oakmont so concentrating on the star names might make sense.

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Is There an Identikit Winner?

The US Open produces more than its fair share of event specialists.

Andy North only ever won three PGA Tour events and two of them were US Opens! Jeff Maggert only won three PGA Tour events too and none of them majors but between 1994 and 1999 he finished inside the top ten in this championship four times.

The defending champ, Bryson DeChambeau, is a two-time winner and fellow LIV golfer, Brooks Koepka, who's lost his way a bit of late, finished first, first, second and fourth in the four US Opens he played in before 2022.

It's very easy to concentrate too hard on previous major champions whenever we start looking at form for any major championship but it's odds-on that the winner won't have tasted success before if recent history can be believed.

As highlighted above, the last three US Open winners here hadn't won a major before and as Dave Tindall highlights in his 10-year-trends piece, only three of the last 10 US open winners had won a major previously.

Looking at all four of majors collectively, the last four have all been won by someone who had already tasted success but 23 of the last 38 (61%) major championships have gone to a first-time major winner so don't be surprised if we get another but do expect them to feature highly in the Official World Rankings.

Each of the last 15 US Open winners were ranked inside the top 32 in the Official World Rankings and 51 of the last 52 majors have been won by someone inside the world's top 50. The odd man out is Phil Mickelson who defied all sorts of logic at the 2021 US PGA Championship when he won at the age of 51 - ranking 115^th in the world.

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A recent high finish looks a solid pointer

As many as 10 of the last 12 winners have posted a top 15 finish in one or both of their previous two starts.

US Opens are really tough, and you simply can't just rock up and find your game from nowhere, as the last three editions demonstrate nicely.

Here are the form figures for the top five and ties at the last three US Opens.

2022
1 Matthew Fitzpatrick - 2-5-MC-10
T2 Will Zalatoris - MC-2-MC-5
T2 Scottie Scheffler - 15-MC-2-18
4 Hideki Matsuyama - W-14-3-60
T5 Collin Morikawa - 29-55-40-MC
T5 Rory McIlroy - 5-8-18-1

2023
1 Wyndham Clark - 24-1-MC-12
2 Rory McIlroy - 47-7-7-9
3 Scottie Scheffler - 5-2-3-3
4 Cameron Smith - 6-2-9-9
T5 Tommy Fleetwood - 5-18-MC-2
T5 Rickie Fowler - 14-MC-6-9
T5 Min Woo Lee - MC-MC-18-40

2024
1 Bryson DeChambeau - 26-27-2-18
2 Rory McIlroy - 1-12-4-15
T3 Tony Finau - 52-18-17-8
T3 Patrick Cantlay - 23-29-53-MC
5 Matthieu Pavon - 30-67-MC-MC

The odd placed player has come in under the radar but even those with poor form figures in their previous four starts had shown something earlier in the year.

Looking specifically at the last three US Open winners here, Els had finished second in his two previous starts, Cabrera had finished fifth in the prestigious PGA Championship at Wentworth in his previous start, and DJ had finished third at the Memorial Tournament and fifth in the FedEx St Jude so all three telegraphed their victories to varying degrees.

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Recent major form a huge plus too

The 2023 winner, Wyndham Clark, had shown nothing to speak of in a major championship but he's most definitely the exception and not the rule and 10 of the last 12 US Open winners had posted a top 10 finish in at least one of their previous two majors.

Last year's winner, DeChambeau, had finished second to Xander Schauffele in the US PGA a month before winning at Pinehurst and having finished 10^th in the US Masters in April, the 2022 winner, Matthew Fitzpatrick, then contended strongly at the US PGA Championship a month before he won this event, finishing fifth behind Justin Thomas at Southern Hills.

Very recent form, and recent form in either the US Masters or the US PGA Championship, or better still, both, is a huge plus. 

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Winner's Position and Exchange Price Pre-Round Four

2024 - Bryson DeChambeau - led by three strokes 1.9210/11
2023 - Wyndham Clark - tied for the lead with one other 4.84/1
2022 - Matt Fitzpatrick - tied for the lead with one other 4.3100/30
2021 - Jon Rahm - tied sixth, trailing by three 13.012/1
2020 - Bryson DeChambeau - solo second, trailing by two 3.55/2
2019 - Gary Woodland - led by one stroke 3.1511/5
2018 - Brooks Koepka - tied for the lead with three others 5.59/2
2017 - Brooks Koepka - tied second with two others, trailing by one 5.59/2
2016 - Dustin Johnson - tied second with one other, trailing by four 4.84/1 

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In-Play Tactics

This major tends to be an almighty grind, making headway up the leaderboard as the week progresses is incredibly tough, and up with the pace is where you need to be.

That was demonstrated perfectly at Pinehurst last year given the top five were all inside the top six places after round one, and up with the pace has been the place to be here too.

This is what the top six looked like after round one in 2016 compared to the final leaderboard.

Round One
Andrew Langley -4
Dustin Johnson -3
Lee Westwood -3
Shane Lowry -2
Sergio Garcia -2
Scott Piercy -2

Result
Dustin Johnson -4
Jim Furyk -1
Shane Lowry -1
Scott Piercy -1
Sergio Garcia EV
Branden Grace EV

Somewhat bizarrely, the last two US Open winners at Oakmont, DJ and Cabrera, both trailed by a stroke after round one, both led by a stroke at halfway, and both trailed by four with 18 to play before shooting 69 in round four to win.

DJ sat tied for second, four adrift of Shane Lowry, and he was trading at 4.84/1, but Cabrera was tied for seventh and trading at 50.049/1.

Cabrera's victory demonstrates that it's possible to come from some way back on Sunday, but four strokes is the most any winner has trailed by after 54 holes this century.

In fact, the last 26 US Opens have been won by someone within four strokes of the lead with a round to go.

Lee Janzen trailed by five at the Olympic Club way back in 1998, but he was only tied for fourth and his cause was helped considerably by the poor final round by Payne Stewart, who had led by three through 54 holes. 

It's very easy to get too eager before the off at the majors and to place a plethora of bets before the start but waiting for the in-play is most definitely the way to play this major if you want to make a profit.

I'll look at the past stats in plenty of detail in the In-play Blog once we're underway but concentrating on the leaders is the way to go.

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Superb Scheffler fairly priced at 3/14.00

Scottie Scheffler arrives at Oakmont at the top of his game with current form figures reading 1-1-4-1 but he was in equally good form last year, having won five of the eight events he'd played in after his 10^th place finish in the Genesis Invitational at Riviera in February.

He went off at around 7/24.50 at Pinehurst 12 months ago, but he started slowly and was never in the hunt, eventually finishing 41^st, beaten by 14 strokes.

That was a particularly odd result given he won the Travelers Championship two weeks later and that he followed that win with a seventh-place finish in the Open Championship before picking up a gold medal at the Paris Olympics.

Prior to last year, he had US Open form figures reading MC-27-MC-7-2-3, making his Pinehurst flop even more perplexing.

Scheffler ranks number one for Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, SG: Off-the-Tee and SG: Approach the Green, as well as third for Greens In Regulation and first for Scrambling.

After Rory McIlroy's alarming missed cut in Canada, Scheffler's nearest challenger in the market is now Bryson DeChambeau and the only other player in the field trading at less than 25/126.00 is Spanish Liv star, Jon Rahm.

Xander Schauffele is still finding his feet after injury, Ludvig Aberg hasn't been close to his best since winning the Genesis at Torrey Pines, and he's missed three of his last eight cuts, and Collin Morikawa has forgotten how to win.

It's quite difficult to make a strong case for many of the world's best players at present and Scheffler is far and away the most likely winner. Especially when we bear in mind how classy the previous winners at Oakmont have been.

He may look short at 3/14.00 but it's more than fair and I'm happy to back him at that price.

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Straka a strong contender too

My only other selection is the world number five, Sepp Straka.

If we're going to see someone win their first major title at Oakmont on Sunday, then it's likely to be the in-form Austrian who's already won twice this year.

He narrowly missed the cut at Augusta when a selection at 90.089/1 but the damage was done on Thursday there when he opened up with a 78!

He also missed the cut at last month's US PGA Championship, but that event may have come too soon given he'd won the Truist Championship the week before.

He followed his weekend off at Quail Hollow with a third-place finish behind Scheffler in the Memorial Tournament two weeks ago and if he can start nicely on Thursday, he'll be there or thereabouts on Sunday night.

The 32-year-old finished second at the Open Championship two years ago so this links-style layout should suit him nicely.

Straka currently ranks first for GIR on the PGA Tour, fifth for Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green and second for SG: Approach the Green so his approach play has been exceptional all year and the fact that he ranks inside the top ten for Driving Accurcy is no bad thing either given how brutal the rough is.

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*You can follow me on Twitter @SteveThePunter

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