Interested in creating a list of contenders that is long enough to give confidence of including the U.S. Open champion? That list might need to be a little longer than you expect. Since 2000, only half of the 18 U.S. Open winners have even been in the top 10 of the Hawley Ratings. Only three have been no. 1 before winning (Tiger Woods in each case). Believe it or not, we’ve had five winners this century who weren’t even in the top 40 of the ratings before winning – that’s no. 78 Retief Goosen in 2001, no. 183 (!) Michael Campbell in 2005, no. 64 Angel Cabrera in 2007, no. 48 Lucas Glover in 2009, and no. 80 Graeme McDowell in 2010. More recently Martin Kaymer was no. 40 on the nose when he won in 2014.

The average and median rating numbers of the winner are around 1180, or around 15th to 20th place in the ratings.

Players who might jump up and win from that range include Emiliano Grillo, Francesco Molinari, and Webb Simpson. (Simpson, of course, is the 2012 U.S. Open champ.) All three are playing great lately and have the right game for the course.

And speaking of player characteristics, you’d think a long hitter who can scramble is the guy for the U.S. Open. The data backs this up. Driving distance and scrambling are the two statistics most closely correlated to success on U.S. Open courses of the last eight years. Assuming the Shinnecock Hills course matches the typical U.S. Open setup, those with the best statistical profile for success are Rory McIlroy, Jason Day, Justin Thomas, Alexander Levy, Andrew (Beef) Johnston, Dustin Johnson, Paul Casey, and Louis Oosthuizen, in that order.

Two names stand out close to the top of the ratings – Dustin Johnson and Justin Rose. Johnson, winner last week in the FedEx and winner of the 2016 U.S. Open, has been wonderfully consistent for months now. Other than the WGC-Match Play event, he hasn’t missed a top 20 in 14 appearances going back to last fall’s Tour Championship. Eight of those are top-10s.

In Rose’s case, go back all the way to start of the FedEx Cup series in September. That’s 20 events, and he has four wins (two in Euro events), five other top-fives, five other top-10s, only three finishes out of the top 25, and no missed cuts. “This is the best I’ve ever played over a long period,” Rose, the 2013 U.S. Open champ, said to dailymail.co.uk after winning at Colonial last month. “We all strive for consistency and I think we’re seeing that in my game now. There are still areas to improve and I’d like to feel more comfortable on the greens more often — wouldn’t we all?”

If you think we’re due for another strike of the Campbell-Goosen-McDowell lightning, here are names of some players between 40th and 80th in the ratings who are playing well recently and are good fits for the course: most notably Bryson DeChambeau and Byeong Hun An, also Kiradech Aphibarnrat, Branden Grace, and Keegan Bradley. Bradley had to come thru sectional qualifying to make the field, and after doing so had this to say to golfdigest.com: “I look forward to getting my teeth kicked in at Shinnecock, but anytime you can play in a major, it’s big.” That’s confidence, not.