In a season in which no player has stood out from the pack to any significant extent, golf’s third major arrives this week just north of San Diego with plenty of contenders but no clear-cut top choice. Let’s take a look at a half-dozen of the most logical choices and then another half-dozen of guys from the next echelon who could get it done.

• Xander Schauffele – A top contender by most measures, Schauffele, 27, is a native of San Diego whose exposure to the Torrey Pines course goes back to high school. He has been good but not great this season, having missed two cuts and finished 39th in the WGC-Mexico event. The rest of the time he’s been good – three top-10s, including a runner-up finish at Phoenix and a third in the Masters. Also he has three other top-20 finishes, not to mention a record of four-for-four in finishing in the top 10 in the U.S. Open, never worse than sixth.
• Patrick Reed – Another player who misses the cut occasionally but is frequently prominent on Sunday. He has three top-10s in his last five appearances with a best of fifth in the Memorial earlier this month. He’s a very good putter, no. 1 among all U.S./ Euro pros in putts per green in regulation and in the top 5 percent in shots gained putting.
• Jon Rahm – Hawley Ratings no. 1 for almost all of the last six months who made the foolish mistake of not getting vaccinated for covid-19 and then had to withdraw from the Memorial with a six-stroke lead. He has only one missed cut this year and six top-10 finishes in his last nine appearances (ignoring the Memorial fiasco).
• Louis Oosthuizen – 38-year-old South African, winner of the 2010 British Open, has had a remarkable resurgence of his career in the last two months. In the last four events, he has three top-10s, including runner-up finishes at the PGA and Zurich. He’s been in the top 10 in four of the last eight U.S. Opens, including a runner-up finish in 2015. He’s in the top 2 percent in shots gained putting.
• Webb Simpson – Has only three appearances since the start of April, including a 12th at the Masters and 30th at the PGA. Was in the top 10 of the U.S. Open twice in the last three years.
• Bryson DeChambeau – He was great in March, winning the Palmer and finishing third in TPC. Since then it’s been a downward slope. In the last six events, he’s been outside the top 40 three times and just once in the top 10. Hits the ball out of sight.

Now we’ll skip over some good players and look for someone who would be a little surprising.

• Abraham Ancer – No. 16 in the Hawley Ratings, he went thru a string of eight straight events from February thru May with two top-10s (including runner-up at the Wells Fargo) and nothing worse than 26th at the Masters. Then he went to Germany to play a Euro Tour event and missed the cut as the event favorite.
• Jordan Spieth – No. 21 in the ratings. Working on a long string of 10 straight events without a missed cut. That includes the Texas win, a runner-up at the Schwab, a third at the Masters, and three other top-10s.
• Shane Lowry – No. 33, a 34-year-old Irishman has three top-10s in five events since the start of April. The top-10s include the last two appearances (Memorial and PGA). Runner-up in the 2016 U.S. Open.
• Kevin Streelman – No. 50 is having a steady year with five top-20 finishes, one of them an eighth at the PGA.
• Troy Merritt – No. 111 has two strings of three straight missed cuts this year but opened some eyes with back-to-back sevenths at the Schwab and Nelson.
• Garrick Higgo – No. 177 and the stunning winner last week at the Palmetto. He emerges as the no. 1 player in the field in terms of fit for the course. The 22-year-old South African, who missed the cut in the PGA in his only U.S. appearance prior to the Palmetto, is no. 1 among all U.S. and Euro pros in shots gained putting, is in the top 2 percent in putts per green in regulation, and in the top 10 percent in driving distance and greens in regulation. He has a remarkably large lead of 0.9 strokes per round over Oosthuizen, who is second in course fit per the Hawley statistics. Oosthuizen is in the top 2 percent in shots gained putting and in the top half among all players in the other stats mentioned.

Unlike some U.S. Open courses, Torrey Pines is well-known to Tour regulars as the course on which the annual Farmers Insurance Open is played each January or February. As supported by data in the Hawley course fit statistics, Torrey Pines demands a well-rounded game from the competitor. Putting, driving distance, and greens in regulation are the three stats most highly correlated with success in the last eight iterations of the Farmers. The typical U.S. Open course skews similarly, although with much stronger emphasis on success putting.

After Higgo and Oosthuizen, others for whom the course might be appealing, in order, include Robert MacIntyre, Schauffele, Jason Kokrak, DeChambeau, and Simpson.

What is widely referred to simply as Torrey Pines is actually two municipal courses, North and South, with the latter earning most of the notoriety. Torrey Pines is built on an undulating landscape overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The most distinctive feature is two large and three smaller tongues (or isthmuses, if you will) of land that extend toward the beach and are bounded by deep drop-offs or ravines. The 18th hole runs north, parallel to Torrey Pines Road and the coastline. The par-five closer features a raised green just beyond a large pond that has claimed the golf ball of many a player who is a bit short on approach. The course is located about 15 miles north of the downtown waterfront in San Diego, or about five miles south of the Del Mar racetrack, or try 85 miles south of Disneyland.

As usual, the field is incredibly strong thru the first 100 players or so. Hawley Ratings no. 42 Talor Gooch is the highest-rated player not in the field. Marc Leishman and Brendan Steele are the only others from the top 50 who are missing. Below the highest-ranked 100 or so entrants, there are a couple of dozen pros ranked in the 200s or lower, and finally, emerging from qualifying, there are about three dozen players known only to their local fans, college buddies, and families. (In TPC and the PGA, the absence of these last 50 or 60 guys is what makes those fields the strongest in the world.)