GOLF PICK 'EM: U.S. OPEN MATCHUP BREAKDOWNS
BY WILL GRAY
Golf Pick 'Em is back for another season of picks and prizes in the NBC Sports Predictor app.
The free-to-play game has returned in 2021 and continues this week with the U.S. Open. Each week participants will choose between a series of head-to-head matchups, plus select an overall tournament champion and winning score.
Participants can compete for weekly cash prizes, with a $50,000 jackpot available for any participants who earn a perfect score (increasing up to $100,000 during some of the biggest events of the year). There will also be at least $1,000 awarded each week in cash and prizes, even if there is no player with a perfect score. With a major up for grabs this week, the jackpot has been increased to $100,000.
Here's a look at some of the keys to this week's set of 10 matchups at Torrey Pines, which is a regular Tour stop in January but is hosting a major for the first time since Tiger Woods' dramatic playoff win in 2008:
Keys: This marquee matchup features the top two players in the world. Johnson won this title five years ago at Oakmont and has a number of other close calls, notably Chambers Bay and Shinnecock. He appeared in position for a win last week at Congaree before fading to a T-10 finish over the weekend, but it was his first sign of form since about February. Rahm has been cleared for a full week of prep following his WD from the Memorial with a six-shot lead because of COVID-19, and his Torrey record includes four finishes of T-7 or better in five starts, highlighted by his first Tour win in 2017.
Edge: Rahm
Bryson DeChambeau vs. Brooks Koepka
Keys: The two players engaged in a social media fuel have also won this event three of the last four years. DeChambeau broke free from the pack at Winged Foot in September, while Koepka was beaten by exactly one player in this event from 2017-19. Neither one boasts a strong Torrey record, with DeChambeau missing the cut in both 2017-18 while Koepka has missed two of three cuts here and enters off an early exit at Congaree.
Edge: Koepka
Phil Mickelson vs. Hideki Matsuyama
Keys: The two major champs so far in 2021 - certainly an unlikely duo a few months ago. Mickelson missed the cut at Colonial in his lone start since Kiawah, and now he returns home for the tournament that has tortured him for 22 years on a course that hasn't fit his eye since a mid-2000s redesign. Matsuyama has been relatively quiet since the Masters, but he has made five straight Farmers cuts including a T-3 showing in 2019. His best U.S. Open finish came back in 2017, when he was a runner-up at Erin Hills.
Edge: Matsuyama
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Jordan Spieth vs. Rory McIlroy
Keys: Two former champs here, with Spieth winning at Chambers Bay in 2015 and McIlroy now a decade removed from his Congressional triumph. Spieth doesn't have quite the same hype he did entering the first two majors this year, as he has largely struggled at Torrey with three missed cuts and only one top-30 finish in six trips. McIlroy has had a much better run on the South Course, finishing T-5, T-3 and T-16 in his three appearances since 2019 while breaking par in five of six weekend rounds on the South.
Edge: McIlroy
Patrick Reed vs. Patrick Cantlay
Keys: One Patrick won earlier this year at Torrey Pines. The other won two weeks ago at the Memorial. Reed survived a drop controversy to win the Farmers in January, his fourth straight top-25 finish in the event. Cantlay has won twice in the wraparound season but the California native hasn't found much success on the South Course, missing the cut in two of his three Farmers appearances.
Edge: Reed
Collin Morikawa vs. Xander Schauffele
Keys: Two of the best iron players in the field. Morikawa leads the Tour in SG: Approach by a wide margin, and he enters off a playoff loss two weeks ago at Memorial. His major win last year came in the Golden State, and he finished T-21 in his 2020 Farmers debut. Schauffele has become a regular fixture on U.S. Open leaderboards, finishing T-6 or better in all four appearances, and the San Diego product finally figured out Torrey earlier this year with a Farmers T-2 after missing the cut in four of his five prior appearances.
Edge: Schauffele
Justin Thomas vs. Viktor Hovland
Keys: Thomas came close to a U.S. Open win four years ago at Erin Hills, and he was T-8 last year at Winged Foot. He finished T-10 at Torrey in 2014 but hasn't played the Farmers since a missed cut in 2015. Hovland has finished T-12 and T-13 in the last two U.S. Opens, the former as an amateur, and he was a runner-up behind Reed at the Farmers earlier this year.
Edge: Hovland
Louis Oosthuizen vs. Will Zalatoris
Keys: The runners-up from the first two majors square off. Oosthuizen couldn't catch Mickelson at Kiawah, and he was also second at the 2015 U.S. Open at Chambers Bay. He has made the cut in each of his two Farmers appearances, finishing T-29 earlier this year. Zalatoris shined in his Masters debut, and he jump-started his ascent with a T-6 finish at this event last year at Winged Foot. He was also T-7 earlier this year at Torrey while breaking par in all three rounds on the South Course.
Edge: Zalatoris
Keys: Their names are joined on the U.S. Open trophy, with Simpson winning in 2012 at Olympic and Rose lifting the hardware the following year at Merion. Simpson hasn't played the Farmers since a missed cut back in 2011, while Rose won the event in 2019 to cap three straight top-10s and finished inside the top 10 in each of the first two majors this year.
Edge: Rose
Tony Finau vs. Scottie Scheffler
Keys: Two talented players without much hardware to show for it. Finau has become a major mainstay, with eight top-10 finishes over his last 11 majors played including each of the first two this year. His Torrey record is equally stellar, with four top-10s and nothing worse than T-24 in seven appearances. Scheffler missed last year's U.S. Open because of COVID-19 and missed the cut at Torrey in January but finished third at the Memorial two weeks ago.
Edge: Finau
