Paul McGinley
Golf Columnist
Paul McGinley: Why strategy will be key at Winged Foot for US Open
Watch the opening round of the US Open on Thursday from 12.30pm on Sky Sports Golf
Last Updated: 17/09/20 12:39pm
Winged Foot is a very, very difficult golf course that's set up in a very difficult way, so it's going to test a lot of skills that we don't normally see week-to-week on the PGA Tour and the European Tour.
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A US Open should always be the most difficult test in golf and that's what its DNA has always been. It has gone away from that at times over the past few years but it looks like it's going to return to that this year.
I hope the winning score doesn't get to five-over par, like it did when Geoff Ogilvy won there in 2006, because that means it has become way too difficult. Personally, I'd love to see a winning score somewhere around five-under par.
You don't want it to get up into double figures, so somewhere between even par and five under would be a great test and a true test of what a US Open should be.
The rough is up, so there's a high premium for hitting fairways, which is something we don't always see on the PGA Tour. Last year, only one of the top 10 players in the world was ranked in the top 100 in driving accuracy, which is something we shouldn't see in the game.
The other real challenge is going to be the green complexes. Albert Tillinghast, who designed it, is notorious for putting a lot of slope on his greens, and Gil Hanse came in a few years ago to renovate them, where he enhance what was there already and brought them up to modern standards.
The greens are very complex; they have a lot of slopes on them and there's a lot of course management involved. There will be a big onus on chipping and putting this week but also a big onus on strategy. If you're too aggressive when coming out of the rough, without the spin control, it's very easy to end up in spots where you can rack up a big number.
The mindset is often players not being too bothered if they hit it into the rough, because they're hitting it so far now that they can often hack it out and onto the green. This week, when they do miss fairways, they'll have to be thinking about the next play and where they want to leave it to give themselves the best chances of getting up and down.
Who will impress?
There are three guys that are dominating world golf right now and that's Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm and Justin Thomas. They're the top three players in the world, firing on their game and all have the skillsets to win around Winged Foot.
The two most difficult golf course we've seen post-lockdown have been at The Memorial and the BMW Championship and Rahm won both of those, so picking him this week wouldn't be a difficult call. Having said that, it's still got to be done and he still hasn't won a major championship yet.
Johnson's last four events have made him the form man in golf and he has experience of winning the US Open at Oakmont, which is another difficult golf course, so he is someone that relishes it conditions are tough and scoring is challenging.
Rahm and DJ are the two guys you'd highlight, but don't discount another first-time winner like we saw with Morikawa at the PGA Championship. There's going to be no crowds again this time and Morikawa was the first to admit that no spectators helped him at TPC Harding Park.
Who will win the US Open? Watch throughout the week live on Sky Sports. Live coverage begins on Thursday from 12.30pm on Sky Sports Golf.
