Following one of the more bizarre weeks in professional golf history, the USGA takes the year’s third major championship to perhaps the most anticipated site of its annual playing in the last quarter century: the 2023 U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club. For most of the last 100 years, this would not have seemed possible as an extremely private club has long been against turning itself inside out. However, the combination of a restoration and a new generation helped pave the way for what should be the most extraordinary of majors.
It will happen under some exceptional circumstances, too, as the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund have agreed to do … something together in the future that is currently reverberating in the present. For the second consecutive year, the U.S. Open will be played in the shadow of tectonic shifts in the pro golf infrastructure.
In some ways, this takes away from the magic of the majors. In others, it illuminates their importance. Regardless, the terrain of professional golf cannot be changed as we head into a U.S. Open week stuffed with storylines as the 123rd edition of this tournament — and perhaps its very best version — gets underway.
2023 U.S. Open storylines
1. The death of LIV Golf? A year ago, LIV players came in hot to Brookline, fresh off their league’s first tournament. Phil Mickelson held one of the strangest press conferences in golf history, and Brooks Koepka snapped at everybody in sight. A year later, and their league is … well, what is their league? Is it on the verge of receiving rocket fuel and becoming the preeminent institution in men’s pro golf? Greg Norman seems to think so. Or is it a lame duck league awaiting a flick of PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan’s hand to send it into the annals? Jimmy Dunne seems to think so. Regardless of what you think, this is going to be a massive narrative all week, and players are going to be asked over and over and over again about what the future holds. That will unfortunately (but possibly also intriguingly, if you’re looking for answers) eat up most of the first three days of U.S. Open week before the golf takes center stage.
2. And it is quite a stage: If you’re unfamiliar with LACC, you still have time! It’s a wondrous golf course that should be the perfect backdrop for a United States Open. Set in the heart of the city of dreams, there are plenty of places for them to die at this rugged, often penal, always fascinating track. A Gil Hanse redesign restored the soul of a course that was built 100 years ago by George Thomas, who also put Riviera Country Club (site of the PGA Tour’s Genesis Invitational) together. The most interesting aspect of the entire course and setup to me? Well, it’s the idea of creating half-par holes: par 4s that play to an average of 3.5 and par 3s that do the same.
It creates emotional whiplash in an event already known for it, and when you combine that mental hurdle with a championship that’s already the most intellectually menacing in the world, it’s going to make for some tremendous viewing.
3. Six pack for Brooks Koepka: If Brooks wins this week, he will have reached Mickelson’s career major total (six) at an age (33 years, 1 month) at which Mickelson still had not won his first. This is extraordinary, and it might actually happen. Koepka won his fifth at the PGA Championship at Oak Hill last month, and he comes in with an astonishingly good U.S. Open record. From 2017-21, Koepka beat or tied 616 of a possible 620 opponents at U.S. Opens. Take out last year’s poor showing at The Country Club (he finished 55th), and the picture is of someone who absolutely destroys at U.S. Opens.
4. Historic run: It won’t get the attention it probably deserves for a handful of reasons, but Scottie Scheffler is performing right now at a level basically only Tiger Woods has performed at for the last 20 years. The first reason it won’t get attention is that Scheffler is not a thrill ride on the course like Jordan Spieth. He’s fairways and greens, not behind trees and over lakes and underneath the clown’s mouth. The second is that Scheffler is not a thrill ride off the course like Rory McIlroy. Quoting “The Office” is about as spicy as it gets for Scheffler. It’s not that he doesn’t have opinions, it’s just that he (wisely?) doesn’t always share them. But despite not getting as much attention, he’s been an absolute force at major championships with top 21 finishes in 11 of his last 12 starts and top 10s in eight of those. Oh, and as for that historic run?
5. Home for Homa: L.A. native Max Homa famously owns the course record of 61 at LACC, and there is perhaps no golf tournament that has ever been played or ever will be played from now until the end of Homa’s career that he would rather win. If his emotional breakdown after winning at Riviera in 2021 doesn’t convince you of that, then let Sean Martin’s excellent profile of Homa do so.
The opportunities to win any tournament at home, but especially a major, are exceedingly rare. This is the first U.S. Open in Los Angeles in 75 years.
“The hardest part is going to be the best part,” Homa said.
The problem? Homa hasn’t been very good at major championships so far in his career, and that’s been especially true at the U.S. Open, where he has one T47 and three missed cuts in four total appearances. If that flips then we are truly in for an astounding “this might be a movie” type weeks, but given the pressure and the perfect narrative and all the luck involved with winning a major championship, it seems like a dream week for Homa may remain just that.
6. Green jacket, silver trophy: Jon Rahm has an opportunity to do something few have ever achieved by winning a Masters and a U.S. Open in the same calendar year. Since World War II ended, the list of golfers to achieve this includes Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Jordan Spieth. That’s all of them, and Rahm comes in as the second-shortest favorite playing on perhaps his favorite coast. As fellow CBS Sports golf writer Patrick McDonald pointed out, Rahm has crushed in California and is also part of the group of players who come in playing tremendous golf.
7. The Ryder Cup trio: Xander Schauffele, Collin Morikawa and Justin Thomas are three players that have nothing to do with one another (other than that they play Ryder Cups together) are among the three most intriguing for me this week. Schauffele has been perhaps the best U.S. Open golfer of the last 10 years and yet has no trophy to show for it. Will he improve on his finishes of T5, T6, T3, 5th, T7 and T14 over the last six years and actually compete for the title?
Morikawa had to withdraw from the Memorial a few weeks ago with a back injury. The way he described it, there’s not a lot of long-term concern, but for somebody who — like Homa — is trying to win where he grew up (and had immense success at this golf course, going 4-0-0 at the 2017 Walker Cup), it has to be a frustrating injury at exactly the wrong time.
As for Thomas, there have been rumors of him being injured through most of 2023. It’s one possible way to explain his drop from being one of the 10 best players in the world. He’s not hitting approach shots like usual, was not a factor in either of the first two majors of the year and enters this week with little to no momentum. He’s still J.T. and can pop off at literally any time, but all of the above should be taken into account when considering him this week.
8. Matching Brooks: Will Rory finally close out a fifth in the next major after Koepka won his? I’m not sure McIlroy’s game is quite tidy enough right now to win a major championship, but it’s undoubtedly close. He played solidly at the PGA Championship and had near misses at the Memorial and Canadian Open. It would be a tremendous delight to get five years of the two biggest major winners of the post-Tiger era trading the generational lead back and forth. And while that’s an unlikely outcome given the talent atop pro golf, it’s one worth rooting for as Koepka and McIlroy are two of the few who have the opportunity to shift golf history at any major for the next several years.
9. Mickelson’s career slam: It has become maybe even less talked about than Spieth’s career slam attempts at the PGA Championship, but technically, it is still alive. And while the time of Mickelson contending for U.S. Opens has probably passed (he doesn’t have a top 25 since 2013), this golf course and setup should fit him better than most styles of U.S. Open. Oh yeah, and he finished T2 at the Masters this year.