As has been the case most of the time this season, if Dustin Johnson tees it up, Dustin Johnson is the favorite. So it goes this week in the U.S. Open. Although Johnson had his second bad event of the year two weeks ago in the Memorial, he is no. 1 this week both for the overall quality of his play and for the unsentimental mathematical fitness of his game for the standard U.S. Open course. The statistics most highly correlated with success in this event over recent years are driving distance and scrambling, much as many golf fans would suspect. Johnson is no. 1 on the Tour in the former and about two-thirds of the way up the list in the latter.

Included in Johnson’s 15 lifetime victories on the Tour are wins in three straight appearances earlier this season.
Based on analytics reflecting Johnson’s finish estimate and the strength of those behind him, I see Johnson as about a 12-1 shot to win a second straight Open. Next on the list is Rory McIlroy, who should be about 20-1, and then it drops back to a fairly closely-bunched group at 25-1 to 35-1. In strict terms of course fit, the second-best guy in the field is the young Spanish bomber Jon Rahm. After that you have two longshots with a statistical profile to suggest that they are good fits for the course. That’s two-time PGA Tour winner Brendan Steele and Belgium’s Thomas Pieters. Top picks below.