Winner isn't an Open-and-shut case
The last six majors have been won by players who had never won a Grand Slam event. That's not a record, but it's a trend we think will continue at Shinnecock Hills. That said, picking which majorless competitor will prevail takes some imagination. Using a series of eliminations that dispatch players who don't measure up in various categories, we've come up with a surprising winner.
Qualifiers need not apply. In the last 25 years only Steve Jones has managed to win the Open without being one of the 75 or so players exempt from qualifying.
Out: Anyone not eligible by the May 31 deadline. Best bet to break through: Why not John Huston, the world's highest-ranked player not already eligible?
Major champs. It's not extraordinary for the U.S. Open titlist never to have won a Grand Slam event. Seven of the last 12 U.S. Open winners, including Corey Pavin at Shinnecock in 1995, hadn't previously won a major.
Europeans. The last European to win a major was Paul Lawrie in 1999 and the last to win the U.S. Open was Tony Jacklin in 1970. This drought has not gone unnoticed by the contingent from across the Atlantic. "U.S. Open golf is really not what European golfers are familiar with," said Padraig Harrington prior to last year's Open at Olympia Fields. "The courses we play in Europe definitely require more flair, and that's the last thing you want in a U.S. Open. You want to be sort of like a machine, just hit it down the fairway, hit it on the green. And that's not what the Europeans traditionally are great players at being. You want very much to be the most boring golfer around."
Out: Thomas Björn, Paul Casey, Darren Clarke, Brian Davis, Sergio Garcia, Padraig Harrington, Joakim Haeggman, Fredrik Jacobson, Miguel Angel Jiménez, Ian Poulter, Phillip Price, Justin Rose, Lee Westwood. Best bets to match Jacklin: Jacobson, Garcia
Pros from Japan and Argentina. These lands have produced some great golfers and some close calls -- Roberto De Vicenzo, '68 Masters; Isao Aoki, '80 U.S. Open -- but nobody from these countries has won a U.S. major.
Out: Angel Cabrera, Toshi Izawa, Shigeki Maruyama, Eduardo Romero, Hidemichi Tanaka. Best bet: Cabrera.
The age factor. A pair of Americans without majors are older than Hale Irwin was in 1990 -- 45 years, 15 days -- when he became the oldest player to win a U.S. Open.
Out: Jay Haas, Scott Hoch. Best bet: Haas, although he'll more likely become a USGA champ when he wins the U.S. Senior Open in St. Louis in August.
Lack of past Open success. Although the courses change from year to year, the governing body supervising course setup remains the same, meaning previous success at Open venues can determine the future. Players who don't play well on the sometimes diabolical layouts have a hard time breaking through. Since 1980 only Lee Janzen has won the Open without a previous top-15 finish. When he won for the first time in 1993, Janzen became just the third player since Francis Ouimet in 1913 to win the title without ever making a U.S. Open cut. He called the win "probably the overachievement of my life."
Out: Stephen Ames, Briny Baird, Chad Campbell, K.J. Choi, Chris DiMarco, Brad Faxon, Nick Flanagan, Steve Flesch, Todd Hamilton, Charles Howell III, Trevor Immelman, Zach Johnson, Jerry Kelly, J.L. Lewis, Chris Riley, Adam Scott, Casey Wittenberg. Best bet to achieve: Campbell.
Players who don't hit a lot of greens. In the last seven years, the U.S. Open champ has led or tied for the tournament lead in GIR. The players listed to the right are hitting less than 65 percent of their greens on the PGA Tour in 2004, unacceptable for anyone expecting to leave the Hamptons with a trophy. "It's a shotmaker's golf course," said Pavin. "You have to be able to hit different shots and play in wind because it's very likely going to be windy almost every day you come out here. It's just a great course to play smart, try to make as many pars as you can."
Out: Stuart Appleby, Jonathan Byrd, Tom Byrum, Fred Funk, Cliff Kresge, Peter Lonard, Tim Petrovic, Craig Parry. Best bet to grind out a win: Appleby
Ordinary putting. Since 1990 the U.S. Open champ has averaged 28.94 putts per round. The group to the left is averaging more than that on the PGA Tour in 2004 (Euro Tour for Michael Campbell). Shinnecock's greens are trickier than most. "There's a lot of slope out here, and in some ways you can compare it to Augusta," said Pavin. "You don't want to have uphill putts. You get on the wrong side here, [and] you can't even get the ball close to the hole."
Out: Robert Allenby, Michael Campbell, Tim Herron, Jonathan Kaye, Stephen Leaney, Billy Mayfair, Kenny Perry. Best bet to overcome so-so putting: Kaye.
Scott Verplank, Kirk Triplett and Stewart Cink
We're not sure if anyone who has worn a bucket hat has won the Open, but we are sure the fashion police will not allow it to happen now. However, if this is the best way to eliminate Triplett, he stands a good chance. He has a solid recent major record (including a T-6 finish in two of the last four Masters) and is having another successful season, closing in on $1 million for the fourth time in five years. "This is my 15th year playing. I, in theory, know more than I did 10 years ago," said Triplett, who hasn't finished outside the top 125 on the money list since he joined the tour in 1990, when asked why his game has improved with time. "Whether I use [that knowledge] or not is up to me. I'm very comfortable out here."
The current rumblings among tour players regarding whether long putters should be legal might reach volcanic proportions if Stewart Cink wins the U.S. Open, but no player has ever won a PGA Tour major using a long putter, and we're betting it won't happen. Cink, though, is a strong candidate to become the first. He played well at Southern Hills in 2001, missing out on the playoff because of shoddy putting on the 72nd hole, indirectly, perhaps, leading to his successful switch to the long putter. He leads the tour in putting average and is second in putts per round (up from 85th and 140th in 2001). Improvement like that can lead to major titles.
"I'm looking forward to it because I know what kind of golf course [Shinnecock] is, and it's the kind I like to play," Verplank said recently. "From what I remember, even back then you didn't bomb driver every hole. You needed to hit it a certain trajectory, a certain distance off the tees. You've got to hit all your clubs. I know they built two or three new tees, so you're going to still have to hit driver on some of the holes -- and you're going to have to hit it straight."
Also in Verplank's favor is his relatively strong start to 2004. He hasn't missed a cut, and he finished second and third in a three-week stretch during the Florida swing. No mean feat for a player who claims to play his best golf during the summer. "Normally it takes me a while to get warmed up," he said. "The weather is not that great at home, and I don't play much over the winter."
