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The 122nd US Open takes place this Thursday at Brookline. It will be the third major of the year and returns back to the Brookline Country Club for the first time since 1988, when Curtis Strange beat Nick Faldo in an 18-hole playoff.
The US Open has previously been held at Brookline on two other occasions, back in 1913 and 1963.
With the disruption that is happening in the world of golf at the moment with the LIV Golf tour in full swing, it will be interesting to see what pans out over the next four days of golf.
The USGA announced last week that despite the PGA’s intentions to discipline and possibly ban players who partake in the LIV events, the US Open will not take that same course of action. Therefore, golfers who have taken part in the inaugural LIV tournament in London at the weekend will be allowed to play at Brookline.
The course itself is a par 70 with narrow fairways and will remain famous as the scene of the notorious 1999 Ryder Cup when USA came back from 10-6 down to win 14 and a half to 13 and a half.
Last years event was won by Spaniard Jon Rahm with a winning score of six under par.
American Brooks Koepka missed the event in 2020 through injury, but since then has a fine record in the tournament finishing first, first, second and fourth in the last four US Opens.
Justin Thomas comes into the event on the back of an equal second place finish with Tony Finau in the Canadian Open at the weekend.
Thomas recently won the US PGA Championship last month and is beginning to hit form at the right time.
The winner of the Canadian Open was Rory McIlroy, who retained his title after fending off stiff competition from Finau and Thomas for his 21st title victory. It was the Irishman’s first tournament victory since he was successful in 2019 at the Wells Fargo Championship.
Mcilroy’s previous best at the US Open was back in 2011 where he won the event. The past four days have shown that the Irishman is slowly getting back to his best and if he can put in four consistent rounds of golf, then he could well be in the mix come the weekend.
World number one Scottie Scheffler will start the tournament as a warm favourite after already winning four tournaments this year and one major in the shape of the US Masters at Augusta.
However, the American hasn’t the best record in the US Open which reads MC-27-MC-7 but is somebody who can erase memories of his previous rounds at this event and start producing four rounds of consistently good scoring to be the man to beat.
Defending champion Rahm has decided to take a week off to prepare for the challenge that lies in wait for the defending champion. After picking up victory in the recent Torrey Pines event in Mexico last month, he hasn’t been at his best during 2022, but is attempting to win back-to-back majors US Opens alongside Strange in 1988 and 89 and Koepka 2017 and 18.
Dustin Johnson- who announced in the past few days that he would only play LIV Golf events and majors and has also applied to join the DP World Tour- is another player who is expected to be in the mix along with Collin Morikawa and European player Viktor Hovland.
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