Wagner tests out 11th hole at Quail Hollow Club
Highlights | Final Round | THE CJ CUP
Check out the best shots of the day from Round 4 of THE CJ CUP Byron Nelson 2025, featuring Jordan Spieth, Erik van Rooyen and Scottie Scheffler, who tied the lowest 72-hole score (253) in PGA TOUR history, finishing at 31-under for the tournament, eight clear of the field for his 14th victory of his PGA TOUR career.
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CNN
30 minutes ago
- CNN
Scottie Scheffler admits that bettors forced him to delete his Venmo account
Being the strong favorite to win a golf tournament isn't always an easy responsibility to bear. Just ask Scottie Scheffler, who has revealed that he was forced to close his Venmo account because of bettors staking money on his performance. Ahead of this week's US Open at Pennsylvania's Oakmont Country Club, for which Scheffler is the strong favorite, the world No. 1 explained how he often hears from fans who have a financial interest in where he finishes at tournaments. 'That's why I had to get rid of my Venmo because I was either getting paid by people or people requesting me a bunch of money when I didn't win,' he told reporters. 'It wasn't a good feeling.' Asked about the biggest sum he had ever been sent as a thank you, Scheffler added: 'I don't remember the most that somebody would send me. Maybe a couple bucks here or there. That didn't happen nearly as much as the requests did.' Scheffler has never won a US Open, but he enters the tournament with three wins in his last four appearances, which includes winning a third major title at the PGA Championship last month. After suffering a freak hand injury while cooking Christmas dinner and spending time away from the game to recover, Scheffler's recent results signal a clear return to form. He underlined his dominance with a four-shot victory at the Memorial Tournament in his last outing, joining Tiger Woods as the only back-to-back winners of the event. However, the 28-year-old said that he doesn't dwell on his status as a frequent pre-tournament favorite. 'Starting Thursday morning, we're at even par and it's up to me to go out there and play against the golf course and see what I can do,' said Scheffler. Oakmont Country Club, which is hosting the US Open for a record 10th time, is a daunting prospect for even the world's best golfers, with fast greens and thick, unforgiving rough. Low scores are not expected this week, and Scheffler went as far as to call it 'probably the hardest golf course that we'll play maybe ever.' He added: 'When you talk about strength and power, I think that becomes more of a factor in these tournaments because, when you hit it into the rough, you've got to muscle it out of there.' Scheffler, seeking his fourth title of the year, tees off at 1:25 p.m. ET on Thursday in a group with Viktor Hovland and Collin Morikawa.
CNN
33 minutes ago
- CNN
Scottie Scheffler admits that bettors forced him to delete his Venmo account
Being the strong favorite to win a golf tournament isn't always an easy responsibility to bear. Just ask Scottie Scheffler, who has revealed that he was forced to close his Venmo account because of bettors staking money on his performance. Ahead of this week's US Open at Pennsylvania's Oakmont Country Club, for which Scheffler is the strong favorite, the world No. 1 explained how he often hears from fans who have a financial interest in where he finishes at tournaments. 'That's why I had to get rid of my Venmo because I was either getting paid by people or people requesting me a bunch of money when I didn't win,' he told reporters. 'It wasn't a good feeling.' Asked about the biggest sum he had ever been sent as a thank you, Scheffler added: 'I don't remember the most that somebody would send me. Maybe a couple bucks here or there. That didn't happen nearly as much as the requests did.' Scheffler has never won a US Open, but he enters the tournament with three wins in his last four appearances, which includes winning a third major title at the PGA Championship last month. After suffering a freak hand injury while cooking Christmas dinner and spending time away from the game to recover, Scheffler's recent results signal a clear return to form. He underlined his dominance with a four-shot victory at the Memorial Tournament in his last outing, joining Tiger Woods as the only back-to-back winners of the event. However, the 28-year-old said that he doesn't dwell on his status as a frequent pre-tournament favorite. 'Starting Thursday morning, we're at even par and it's up to me to go out there and play against the golf course and see what I can do,' said Scheffler. Oakmont Country Club, which is hosting the US Open for a record 10th time, is a daunting prospect for even the world's best golfers, with fast greens and thick, unforgiving rough. Low scores are not expected this week, and Scheffler went as far as to call it 'probably the hardest golf course that we'll play maybe ever.' He added: 'When you talk about strength and power, I think that becomes more of a factor in these tournaments because, when you hit it into the rough, you've got to muscle it out of there.' Scheffler, seeking his fourth title of the year, tees off at 1:25 p.m. ET on Thursday in a group with Viktor Hovland and Collin Morikawa.
New York Times
37 minutes ago
- New York Times
U.S. Open 2025: What to know about Oakmont's top contenders
Recently, the majors in men's golf have been particularly top-heavy. Four players — Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele and Bryson DeChambeau — have combined to win the last six contests. Five of the six wins have come when those players were ranked either first, second or third in the Official World Golf Ranking. The lone exception is DeChambeau, who cannot earn OWGR points week to week playing LIV Golf events (DeChambeau is second in Data Golf's player rankings). Advertisement From the 2008 Open Championship through the beginning of this run, there were 61 men's majors held. Just 11 of them — 18 percent — ranked in the top three in the OWGR that week. That stretch includes many years before the PGA Tour-LIV Golf split, when point distribution was more equanimous throughout the golf universe. Will one of pro golf's powerhouse names add to his major championship collection? Or will Oakmont reveal a new, ascending star? Here are the top numbers and notes to know ahead of the 125th United States Open. 1. This is the 10th U.S. Open held at Oakmont Country Club, the most frequent host in the championship's history. It's the first U.S. Open being played at this Pennsylvania cathedral since 2016, when Dustin Johnson overcame a four-shot final-round deficit to Shane Lowry to claim his first major championship victory. For the fourth time in the last six years, the U.S. Open is being contested on a course restored or renovated by renowned designer Gil Hanse. In 2023, Hanse and his team made a series of updates to the course, each inspired by archival photography going back more than a century. Expanded greens (an additional 24,000 square feet) now resemble tabletop surfaces and will generate a bevy of new hole locations. Oakmont is synonymous with brutal difficulty. In 2007, players who missed the fairway on par fours and fives hit the green in regulation just 33.5 percent of the time. Over the last two U.S. Opens held here, 10 holes have yielded a scrambling rate under 40 percent. Players have three-putted (or worse) on nearly 7 percent of greens in that span – nearly 2 1/2 times the PGA Tour average. In 2016, the field made a combined 334 double bogeys or worse for the week, 34 more than any other tournament all season. Players are greeted with a swift kick in the teeth at the opening hole, which was the hardest on the course during the 2016 U.S. Open (plus-0.45 average to par). At the second hole in the 1994 playoff, Ernie Els made a triple bogey and still won. The eighth is expected to play at more than 300 yards at least once this week, potentially breaking its own record for the longest par 3 in major championship history. Advertisement Power players have reigned at each of the last three U.S. Opens contested here: Els, Angel Cabrera (2007) and Johnson all ranked in the top five that week in distance off the tee. 2. Scheffler enters the week with the shortest odds for a U.S. Open favorite since Tiger Woods in 2009. Justifiably so: three of his last four starts have resulted in victories, each by at least four strokes. He might not have won them all, but Scheffler is unquestionably the most consistent performer at the major championships over the last several seasons. Since the beginning of 2022, Scheffler has led all players in the majors in scoring average, birdie or better rate, strokes gained ball striking and greens in regulation. Remember when Scheffler's putting was a deficiency? Not anymore. Scheffler is ranked sixth on the PGA Tour this season in putts per green in regulation and 25th in strokes gained putting per round. He was 77th on the tour in that statistic last year and 162nd the year before. The best tee-to-green player on the planet is now one of the better putters in the game, too. Good luck, everybody. Scheffler is returning to the site of his U.S. Open debut, which he made as an amateur in 2016. That week he opened with 69 but missed the cut after a second-round 78. 3. The pre-tournament course descriptions of Oakmont — a venue in the northeast, long and extremely difficult with tall, penalizing rough — sound a lot like Winged Foot Golf Club five years ago. DeChambeau captured his first U.S. Open title that week, bombing and slashing his way to a six-shot runaway victory. The severity of penalties for missing off the tee will get copious amounts of discussion, sure. But DeChambeau has largely circumvented those penalties in both of his U.S. Open wins. DeChambeau ranked 26th in fairways hit at Winged Foot and a dismal 66th last year when he won at Pinehurst. His approach play, buoyed by a uniquely steep angle of attack, put him in enough advantageous positions throughout both weeks to mitigate the missed fairways. Advertisement DeChambeau's approach play, though, has been the biggest statistical hindrance to his success in the majors so far in 2025. DeChambeau has accrued minus-3.29 strokes gained approach in the majors this season, ranking 136th of 173 players. He will need better results than that this week if he is to win a third U.S. Open title. 4. Was last week's disastrous two days in Canada a blip on the radar or a more foreboding predictor of the week ahead for McIlroy? After removing the elephant-sized boulder from his back on the 18th green of Augusta National in April, a multi-month golf hangover is understandable. But missing the cut at TPC Toronto by six shots? The heartbreak may have stolen the headlines, but McIlroy has been the most consistently good player year in and year out recently at the U.S. Open. McIlroy enters this week having finished in the top 10 in each of the last six U.S. Opens held. That's one shy of the record for consecutive top-10s, shared by Ben Hogan (1950-56), Bobby Jones (1920-26) and Stewart Gardner (1900-06). Gardner is the only one of the three not to win a U.S. Open during said streak. In 10 stroke play rounds since winning the Masters, McIlroy has lost more than half a stroke to the field per round tee-to-green. He missed the cut at Oakmont in 2016 after opening with 77. 5. Before Schauffele's two-major season of 2024, when he won at Valhalla and Royal Troon, one might have expected his major breakthrough to come at a U.S. Open. Schauffele was the first man since Bobby Jones to start his U.S. Open career with five consecutive top-10 finishes. He's finished in the top 15 in all eight of his U.S. Open starts, the third-longest such run since World War II. Only Jack Nicklaus (12 straight, 1971-82) and Sam Snead (nine straight, 1947-55) have had longer streaks. There are more than 650 players in U.S. Open history with 20 or more career rounds played. Schauffele has the best scoring average of them all (70.19). His 2.84 strokes gained total per round at this championship are the second most by any player in the modern era without a victory, behind only South African great Bobby Locke. However, the Schauffele of years past doesn't quite resemble the one competing in 2025, at least on the greens. Perennially a strong putter, Schauffele ranked 12th in strokes gained putting on the PGA Tour in 2024. He's currently an un-Schauffele-like 139th in that metric. From four to eight feet away, he's 131st on the PGA Tour this season, down 120 spots from a year ago. Advertisement Wildness off the tee is also a concern for the two-time major champ. Schauffele has missed more than 50 percent of his fairways in four of his last seven starts entering this week. Which Schauffele shows up at Oakmont — the historically great performer, or this year's work-in-progress? 6. For a moment at Quail Hollow, Jon Rahm moved back into a familiar position: the top of a major championship leaderboard on a Sunday afternoon. The 2021 U.S. Open champion ultimately finished in a tie for eighth, but his charge to tie Scheffler marked his most prominent major moment since departing the PGA Tour for LIV Golf before last year. Rahm missed last year's U.S. Open with a foot injury, but in the previous several years, he was one of the championship's best. From 2019 through 2023, Rahm ranked fifth in greens in regulation (64.7 percent), fourth in rounds in the 60s (seven), third in bogey avoidance (3.20 per round) and tied for third in scoring (70.2). Like Scheffler, Rahm also made his U.S. Open debut at Oakmont in 2016, earning low amateur honors. 7. Length off the tee has become a more significant factor when determining champions at this national open recently. Consider the last 40 years. From 1985 through 2015, the average driving distance field rank for U.S. Open winners was 28.2. Over the last nine years, that average is just 6.1. Only 39 percent of winners from '85 through '15 ranked in the top 15 in the field that week in distance. Each of the last nine has ranked at least that high. With that in mind, does Collin Morikawa have the requisite pop to win this week? He is one of the most accurate drivers in the sport, currently ranking second on the tour this season in fairways hit. But he's 157th in average driving distance, at 292.6 yards. No player has won the U.S. Open and ranked worse than 80th that year in distance since Webb Simpson in 2012. 8. Last week in Virginia, Joaquin Niemann won for the fourth time this season on LIV Golf. He tied for eighth at the PGA last month, his first career top-10 result in a major, but was never truly in contention to win, starting the final round 10 shots behind Scheffler. A year ago, entering the U.S. Open, Patrick Cantlay was in a similar position in his major championship journey as Niemann is this week. Cantlay headed to Pinehurst, a prolific touring winner with a handful of high finishes in majors, but had never truly played late on Sunday in contention to win one. Cantlay would go on that week to play in the penultimate group alongside McIlroy, finishing two shots behind DeChambeau. Advertisement Still just 26, Niemann is younger than Brooks Koepka was in 2017 (27) when he won his first major. Same for DeChambeau (27), Cameron Smith (28) and Schauffele (30). On Sunday, he will be two days younger than Rahm was when he won at Torrey Pines. There appears to be plenty of time on the clock, but Niemann's talent belies more than what he's achieved to date in the game's greatest championships. 9. Hideki Matsuyama has made the cut at the U.S. Open in eight consecutive years, tied with Schauffele for the longest active streak. Matsuyama, who missed the cut at last month's PGA, has not missed the cut in consecutive majors in nine years. Only three players have averaged more strokes gained ball striking per round at the U.S. Open over the last three years than Matsuyama has. Harris English is nine-for-nine making the cut in his U.S. Open career, doing so in each of the last six years. English, who finished tied for second at last month's PGA, has three top-eight finishes in the last five years at this championship. Tommy Fleetwood is the only man in U.S. Open history with multiple rounds of 63 or better. His improved approach play numbers this season are befitting of a contender: 12th in strokes gained, up 80 spots from a season ago. Fleetwood is one of eight players to finish in the top 20 each of the last two years at the U.S. Open. 10. More than 40 players will be making their U.S. Open debuts this week. Among them is one of the hottest players on the PGA Tour: since late April, Ben Griffin has a team win at the Zurich Classic, another win at Colonial, a top-10 finish at the PGA and a runner-up at the Memorial Tournament. No player has won in his U.S. Open debut since Francis Ouimet in 1913. U.S. Open winners skew younger compared to the other three majors in the men's game. Since 2015, the average age of U.S. Open champions is 28.1, the only one of the four with a mean age under 30. The youngest player in this year's field is 17-year-old Mason Howell, who shot a pair of 63s in final qualifying to earn his spot. Howell still has another year of high school left to complete before heading to the University of Georgia. The 125th U.S. Open begins with split tees on Thursday at 6:45 a.m. ET. (Top photo of Rory McIlroy: Andy Lyons / Getty Images)
