Category: PGA

LIV Golf star Brooks Koepka summed up the state of professional golf with a cheeky comment at the end of his pre-U.S. Open press conference.

“Thanks. See you guys at the Travelers (Championship) next week,” Koepka said.

PGA Tour and LIV members alike are still baffled by last week’s shock announcement of a merger between the PGA Tour and the Saudi Public Investment Fund. But for the time being, Koepka isn’t back to playing a PGA Tour schedule, and the only places where players from the rival tours get together are at the four majors.

Questions about the future of the sport will take a back seat to a difficult test of golf at a new venue when the 2023 U.S. Open tees off Thursday at the Los Angeles Country Club.

Koepka heads to Los Angeles as a five-time major champion after becoming the first active member of LIV to win a major last month at the PGA Championship in Rochester, N.Y. Only Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson have won more majors than Koepka since 2000.

Koepka passed Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland (four) in major titles with that win. The USGA paired them together along with Hideki Matsuyama of Japan for the first two rounds.

“The more chaotic things get the easier it gets for me,” Koepka said. “Everything starts to slow down and I am able to focus on whatever I need to focus on while everybody else is dealing with distractions, worried about other things.”

LACC’s North Course will play as a 7,381-yard par-70, with three par-5s and five par-3s. The par-3s range from the 290-yard 11th hole to the 15th, which could play as short as 78 yards but features three curling bunkers and a highly sloped green.

It’s the course’s first time hosting a major championship, but a few elite golfers have competed there before. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and two-time major winner Collin Morikawa played LACC at the 2017 Walker Cup, a junior team event. And as a college golfer, Max Homa set the course record with a 61 during the 2013 Pac-12 Championship.

But U.S. Opens are notoriously the most difficult of the majors, and no one expects to see a 61 this week.

“It’s going to be pretty hard,” Homa said. “Yeah, I think the sun being out is real helpful. A little bit of wind is going to make it spicy. I hope it’s carnage. I hope it’s a typical U.S. Open.”

Homa (Los Angeles), Patrick Cantlay (Long Beach) and Xander Schauffele (San Diego) are all Southern California natives who enter the week ranked top-10 in the world but still after their elusive first major title. Any one of them could receive a hometown hero’s welcome with a victory.

Scheffler, meanwhile, has been consistent in every way: He’s made 18 straight cuts, finished in the top 12 or better at 15 straight events, he leads the PGA Tour in strokes gained tee to green, and he’s been consistently poor at putting.

Asked if he was changing putters this week, Scheffler said, “You guys can find out Thursday.

“I don’t ever take decisions on switching equipment lightly,” he said. “… The PGA I actually felt like I rolled it pretty good. Few putts here or there that lipped out that should have gone in.”

Matt Fitzpatrick of England is the defending champion, having won last year at The Country Club outside Boston. World No. 2 Jon Rahm of Spain, winner of the 2021 U.S. Open and this year’s Masters, is also a safe bet to contend on the weekend.

“There’s not really a part of your game in any major championship, let alone a U.S. Open, that can really be in doubt. You’re going to need to access every single aspect of your game to win a championship like this,” Rahm said. “I think it becomes more of a mental factor, not overdoing it at home (in practice). You can never really replicate U.S. Open conditions.”

–By Adam Zielonka, Field Level Media

The seclusive Los Angeles Country Club is opening its doors for the first time for the U.S. Open, which begins Thursday in Los Angeles.

The venue adds intrigue to the 123rd playing of the country’s national major golf tournament. Our betting experts preview the event and provide their favorite prop picks along with trends emerging on the best bets to win this week.

123rd U.S. OPEN
Location: Los Angeles, June 15-18
Course: The Los Angeles Country Club, North Course (Par 70, 7,421 yards)
Purse: TBA (Winner: TBA)
Defending Champion: Matt Fitzpatrick
FedEx Cup leader: Jon Rahm

HOW TO FOLLOW
TV: Thursday-Friday, 9:40 a.m.-1 p.m. (Peacock); 1-8 p.m. ET (USA), 8-11 p.m. (NBC); Saturday, 1-11 p.m. (NBC); Sunday, 12-1 p.m. (Peacock), 1-10 p.m. (NBC)
Twitter: @USOpenGolf

PROP PICKS
–Justin Thomas to Miss Cut (+170 at BetMGM, DraftKings): Thomas would be the first to admit that 2023 is not going as expected. His lone top-15 was a fourth at the Phoenix Open four months ago, and Thomas has missed the cut at big tournaments including the Masters and his last start at the Memorial. He also has a T60 at The Players and a T65 at the PGA Championship. While the LACC’s fairways are generally wider than a typical U.S. Open, Thomas’ 127th ranking in driving accuracy this season doesn’t bode well.

–Cameron Smith, Top Australian (+200 at BetRivers): The reigning Open champion quietly rallied for a T9 at the PGA Championship after a T34 at the Masters. He has drawn 3.9 percent of both the outright winner tickets and money at the book, placing Smith just behind the favorites. He does face worthy competition from his countrymen, including former major champions Jason Day (+275) and Adam Scott (+350), who are both enjoying a resurgence this year. The market also includes Cameron Davis (+700), Min Woo Lee (+700), Lucas Herbert (+800) and Karl Vilips (+8000).

–Jon Rahm to Beat Scottie Scheffler (+100 at DraftKings): Scheffler’s incredible consistency dating back to last fall is daunting. So, too, has been Rahm’s, despite a T16 at the Memorial following a T50 at the PGA. The 2021 U.S. Open champion at Torrey Pines loves playing in California. This year alone, he destroyed the PGA Tour’s “California Swing” with wins at the Genesis and the American Express along with a T7 at Torrey Pines.

2023 Prop Picks Record: 24-35-2

BEST BETS
–Scottie Scheffler (+600 at BetMGM) has 16 consecutive finishes of T12 or better, including a win at this year’s The Players and T2 at the Masters. He finished T2 to Matt Fitzpatrick in last year’s U.S. Open and Scheffler’s odds continue to shorten. Since opening at +1200, he has been backed by the second most money to win (11.0 percent) and the third most total bets (6.6 percent).
–Jon Rahm (+1000) won the 2021 U.S. Open and captured his second major at this year’s Masters. However, action on the Spaniard has been relatively modest, as Rahm has drawn the fifth most total bets (5.9 percent) and the fourth most money (7.4 percent). He has been backed by only 3.8 percent of both markets at BetRivers.
–Brooks Koepka (+1100) is already a two-time U.S. Champion. In this year’s first two majors, he finished T2 at the Masters and won his third PGA Championship. Koepka is BetMGM’s second-biggest liability this week. Since opening at +3300, he has been the most popular pick in the field with the most total bets (9.4 percent) and money (13.2 percent) backing him among the entire field.
–Viktor Hovland (+1600) battled Koepka down the stretch on Sunday at the PGA and followed it up with a win at the Memorial. He’s the only player to finish in the top 10 in each of the past three majors. Hovland’s odds have shortened from +3000 at BetMGM. At the same odds at BetRivers, the Norwegian has been supported by the fourth most tickets (5.5 percent) and money (6.0 percent).
–Max Homa (+2800) set the course record at the Los Angeles Country Club with a 61 in the first round of the 2013 Pac-12 Championship. He’s a popular “darkhorse” this week, and Homa is BetMGM’s biggest liability to win as he has drawn the second most bets (6.9 percent) and third most money (8.1 percent).
–One bettor at BetMGM placed a $5,000 wager on Justin Thomas to win at +5000 that would pay $250,000.

NOTES
–The 156-player field will be cut to the low 60 players and ties following 36 holes.
–This is the first major championship to be held at The Los Angeles Country Club, and it will be contested on the North Course. The first edition of the Los Angeles Open (now The Genesis Invitational) was played on the North Course in 1926 and was held there four additional times.
–Rahm will make another attempt to become the first player to win five times in a season since Justin Thomas in 2016-17. He’s also attempting to be the first winner of multiple majors in a year since Jordan Spieth in 2015.
–Fitzpatrick (+3300) is trying to become the first player to successfully defend a U.S. Open title since Koepka in 2018.
–Rory McIlroy (+1200 at BetMGM) has 18 top-10s in majors since claiming the most recent of his four career majors at the 2014 PGA Championship. This will be his 33rd start in a major since that victory.
–No. 4 Patrick Cantlay (+1600), a Los Angeles-area native, is the highest-ranked player in this week’s field who has yet to win a major title.

–Field Level Media

A pair of U.S. senators want the attorney general to look into the PGA Tour agreement to join with the DP World Tour and Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia to determine whether it violates federal antitrust laws, ESPN reported Wednesday.

Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and to Jonathan Kanter, assistant attorney general, asking them to oppose the agreement if laws are broken, ESPN reported citing a copy of the letter.

The two senators said that the PIF’s investment into professional golf under the alliance allows the Saudi Arabian government to further “sportswash” its record on human rights but also “raises an array of potential legal and regulatory issues, including relating to the PGA Tour’s non-profit tax status and antitrust law,” ESPN reported.

Already, the proposed alliance between the PIF and the golf tours has raised the concern of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Its chairman, Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), has asked for documentation of events that led up to last week’s announcement that the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi-funded LIV Golf would work together under one umbrella.

In their letter to Garland, Warren and Wyden argue that the alliance could be flagged under the Clayton Act and the Sherman Antitrust Act and result in a monopoly.

“The PGA-LIV deal, as described in the June 6 announcement, would be a clear violation if it is a joint venture,” Warren and Wyden wrote, per ESPN. “It would give the PGA Tour and PIF control over all significant aspects of U.S. commercial golf operations, including contracts with U.S. golfers and their opportunities to compete, television rights, cost of attendance to elite golf events, and merchandise.”

They continued: “The PGA-LIV deal would make a U.S. organization complicit — and force American golfers and their fans to join this complicity — in the Saudi regime’s latest attempt to sanitize its abuses by pouring funds into major sports leagues.”

–Field Level Media

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan is recuperating from a “medical situation” and is stepping away from day-to-day operations as he recovers, Monahan and the PGA Tour Policy Board announced in a statement Tuesday night.

Tour president Tyler Dennis and chief operating officer Ron Price will lead the organization in Monahan’s absence, per the statement.

“The Board fully supports Jay and appreciates everyone respecting his privacy,” the statement read, adding, “We will provide further updates as appropriate.”

The news adds to an already eventful and tumultuous week for Monahan, 53.

The PGA Tour, DP World Tour and LIV Golf rocked the golf world on June 6 when they announced an agreement to merge into a single, for-profit entity. The move caught much of the golf world off-guard, including the Tour players, who were not consulted before the deal was made.

When Monahan met with players behind closed doors following the announcement, many players directed their ire at Monahan, some reportedly calling for him to step down as commissioner.

On Monday, a U.S. Senate subcommittee sent letters Monahan and LIV commissioner Greg Norman asking to see documents, emails and other records having to do with merger as the subcommittee launched a probe into the deal involving the three tours and the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF), which bankrolls LIV Golf.

That investigation opened days after Monahan sent a letter to the Senate, in part placing some of the blame for the merger at lawmakers’ feet.

“While we are grateful for the written declarations of support we received from certain (congressional) members,” the letter read, “we were largely left on our own to fend off the attacks, ostensibly due to the United States’ complex geopolitical alliance with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This left the very real prospect of another decade of expensive and distracting litigation and the PGA Tour’s long-term existence under threat.”

Monahan took over as Tour commissioner in January 2017, replacing Tim Finchem, who retired after 23 years at the post.

–Field Level Media

For multiple reasons, The Los Angeles Country Club is a special venue for Max Homa.

The 32-year-old has risen into the ranks of golf’s elite — he’s ranked No. 7 in the world — but Homa is still in search of his first major title. He is hoping it comes this week at the U.S. Open in his home area of Los Angeles.

“I’ve just been thinking about how — I don’t know, when you grow up and we all have that cliche joke, putt to win the U.S. Open, putt to win the Masters, you don’t picture the golf course except for if it’s at Augusta,” Homa said Tuesday.

“To have a major in my hometown, 18-ish miles from where I grew up, I think that’s a dream come true.”

Homa has played his best golf in the familiar confines of California. Of his six PGA Tour wins, four have come in the state, including the 2021 Genesis Invitational in Los Angeles and the Farmers Insurance Open earlier this year in San Diego.

He has history at LACC, too, even though it isn’t a regular PGA Tour venue and is set to host major golf for the first time.

When Homa was a student-athlete at Cal, he shot a course-record 61 during the 2013 Pac-12 Championship.

“I do look at that (course knowledge) as a bit of a boost,” Homa said. “All the guys who played the Pac-12s here, anybody who played here prior, it’s definitely a bit of an advantage.”

The devil’s advocate might ask whether such a home-course advantage actually could create distractions for Homa. He joked that if friends have texted him this week looking for U.S. Open tickets, they shouldn’t expect a reply.

“I did try and at least plan a month or two ago like how I go about it,” Homa said. “If I didn’t respond to you this week and you’re somehow watching this, I’m sorry, but it’s a lot.”

Homa was also asked if there’s a danger he might “try too hard” this week.

“You just look at how I played every other major trying way too hard, so I’m quite good at that,” he cracked. “… In an odd way, it’s almost worked its way out positively because I’ve been thinking about this event for like a year, about how I can’t try too hard, can’t try too hard.”

A T13 at the 2022 PGA Championship is his only top-30 result. Last year he made the weekend at the U.S. Open for the first time, tying for 47th.

As for what he’s doing to try to improve that major record, Homa offered a typically humorous, self-effacing answer.

“Play better,” he said.

“I really do believe that my golf game is plenty good enough to contend in these things. I think I’ve shown that in other PGA Tour events. I’ve won six times, a lot of them recently. I’ve done it on some pretty great golf courses, some hard golf courses. I just think I get here and I try too hard. … I think I’ve been waiting for the weeks to click with my golf game and realizing that it’s not the golf game. This week will be a mental test for me, which is good.”

–Field Level Media

The list of golfers with double-digit wins in major tournaments is select, indeed.

Jack Nicklaus tops the group with 18 victories. Tiger Woods has 15, his drive to catch up to Nicklaus stalled because of injuries. And then there’s Walter Hagen, who won 11 from 1914-29.

Three. That’s it. But Brooks Koepka says his goal is to make it four.

Speaking Tuesday at The Los Angeles Country Club ahead of the U.S. Open, which begins Thursday, Koepka told reporters he is confident he can reach at least 10 wins in majors. After his victory last month at the PGA Championship, he’s halfway there with five.

“Double digits, that’s what I’m trying to get to,” Koepka said. “I don’t think it’s out of the question for me. I think the way I’ve prepared, the way I’ve kind of suited my game for these things is going to help me.

“And like I said, I’m only 33, so I’ve definitely got quite a bit of time. I’ve just got to stay healthy and keep doing what I’m doing.”

He clearly saves his best for the majors. He has nine PGA Tour victories — more than half of them in majors.

Koepka has won the U.S. Open twice, back to back in 2017 and ’18. They were different experiences; he was victorious with a 16-under 272 at Erin Hills in Wisconsin in 2017, then finished with a 1-over 281 at Shinnecock Hills in New York the following year. He’s spent this week learning about The Los Angeles Country Club, which is hosting its first U.S. Open.

“It’s a tough golf course. These bunkers are incredibly soft, which I’ve found quite interesting,” he said. “If you’re in these fairway bunkers, it’s extremely penalizing because you’re not going to get a good lie, number one, and it’s not like the ball is going to funnel to the middle of the bunker.

“If it goes into the lip it’s going to stay there. It could plug. Or if it gets in the back, the rough around these bunkers is quite difficult, too, so it’s never going to quite chase in.”

Koepka, currently affiliated with LIV Golf, finished T2 at the Masters this spring, his second tie for second (2019). His best finish at The Open Championship, T4, also came in 2019.

He’s won the PGA Championship three times, including in 2018 and ’19.

Aside from Woods, who has played only a limited schedule the past few years and currently is recovering from ankle surgery, Phil Mickelson (six) is the only active player with more wins in majors than Koepka.

Koepka’s PGA win at Oak Hill in May was the culmination of a lengthy recovery from a difficult knee injury he sustained in a fall at his home in 2021. He dislocated his knee, which led to a shattered kneecap and a torn medial patellofemoral ligament. And given what he went through to return to the top of his game, Koepka said that major win was special.

“They all mean something different, but this last one, for all the stuff I had to deal with, all the pain, the tears, all the stuff that went into it — like I said, there’s probably five, seven people in this whole world that really know what I went through and that were there kind of every step of the way. I think they enjoyed it maybe even more than I did,” he said.

–Field Level Media

Collin Morikawa has had the 2023 U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club circled on his calendar since playing college golf a few hours north in the Bay Area, so he’s not about to let a back injury sideline him this week.

Morikawa was only two shots off the 54-hole lead when he withdrew from the Memorial before the final round two weeks ago. He said it was due to work in the gym and not a golf-related back injury.

“This wasn’t because of golf. This was just bad movement,” he said Tuesday. “It sucked because I grinded for three days to put myself in contention. We figured some things out Saturday afternoon — that’s when you’re excited to wake up and you’re like, ‘We can put together a few birdies early on and you’re right there tied for the lead.’ And who knows what could have happened.

“But it was unfortunate — it sucked, because it’s a course that I’ve loved.”

As much as Morikawa is fond of Jack Nicklaus’ signature course, the California native called Los Angeles his “favorite spot in the world.”

After taking a few days off to rest and work on his rehab, Morikawa arrived in L.A. and stayed at his parents’ house Saturday night.

“It’s always going to be home for me no matter where I live, no matter where I move to,” the current Las Vegas resident said. “There’s just that extra added touch, specialness when you’re playing at home, when you’re playing in the state of California for me.”

Morikawa said he has been pain-free during practice rounds this week, including hitting out of bunkers and the deep rough. He did say that he “might be teeing it up kind of weirdly this week” as a precaution, but not to read too much into it.

The 26-year-old already has a pair of major titles on his resume — the 2020 PGA Championship and the 2021 Open Championship.

Morikawa has slipped to 18th in the Official World Golf Ranking, with his last victory coming in 2021. But he does have a pair of top-6s the past two years at Riviera just seven miles away and is oozing optimism this week.

He played the LACC while on the Walker Cup team in 2017, and Morikawa’s best previous finish at a U.S. Open was a tie for fourth two years ago at Torrey Pines in San Diego.

When he returned to the LACC this week, Morikawa saw a completely different golf course than what he remembered, but “in a good way.” The North Course will play different for the U.S. Open — firmer, faster and with significantly thicker rough.

“It’s just a big-boy golf course, it really is,” he said.

And all that debate about the proposed merger between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund? That’s a subject for another week for this California kid.

“This week means so much,” Morikawa said about a major contested in his hometown. “But that’s just the added bonus, the added fuel for me, to go out there and not waste my energy on anything else.”

–Field Level Media

Jon Rahm believes the opinions of players are valued “to an extent” by those running the PGA Tour, but the world’s No. 2 player also admitted there is a sense of betrayal among the membership.

Rahm said he was at home making breakfast for his kids and wife Kelley on June 6 when text messages started flowing about a planned merger between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF).

“I thought my phone was going to catch on fire at one point,” he said on Tuesday ahead of this week’s U.S. Open. “There were so many questions that I just couldn’t answer.

“At one point I told Kelley I’m just going to throw my phone in the drawer and not look at it for the next four hours because I can’t deal with this anymore.”

Rahm still doesn’t have any more answers a week later, which is part of his frustration. After more than a year of meetings, debate and questions about the LIV Golf League and the future of the PGA Tour, Rahm along with everyone else found out about the proposed merger via a press release.

“They’ve certainly heard us throughout the whole process and some of the issues. But we’re certainly in a spot in time where there’s a big question mark,” he said. “We don’t have any of the answers we’d like, so it’s hard to say.

“I think it gets to a point where you want to have faith in management, and I want to have faith that this is the best thing for all of us, but it’s clear that that’s not the consensus. I think the general feeling is that a lot of people feel a bit of betrayal from management.”

Like most players at the Los Angeles Country Club this week, Rahm offered a mixed viewpoint of disappointment in the PGA Tour along with a wait-and-see attitude. The 2021 U.S. Open and reigning Masters champion admitted it was tough to receive the “bombshell” news the week before a major, but he’s trying to focus on the task at hand.

“I understand why they had to keep it so secret,” he said of the proposed merger. “I understand we couldn’t make it through a (Player Advisory Committee) meeting with more than 10 minutes after people spilling the beans right away in some article by you guys already being out there. So I get it. I get the secrecy.

“It’s just not easy as a player that’s been involved, like many others, to wake up one day and see this bombshell. That’s why we’re all in a bit of a state of limbo, because we don’t know what’s going on and how much is finalized and how much they can talk about, either.

“It’s a state of uncertainty that we don’t love, but at the end of the day, I’m not a business expert. Some of those guys on the board and involved in this are. So I’d like to think they’re going to make a better decision than I would, but I don’t know.

“We’ll see. There’s still too many questions to be answered.”

–Field Level Media

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan blamed congressional inaction for the decision to ally with LIV Golf.

In a letter sent to the U.S. Senate, Monahan said vows of support for the PGA Tour did little to stem the tide in fending off litigation and poaching of talent from the rival tour.

“While we are grateful for the written declarations of support we received from certain [congressional] members,” the letter reads, “we were largely left on our own to fend off the attacks, ostensibly due to the United States’ complex geopolitical alliance with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This left the very real prospect of another decade of expensive and distracting litigation and the PGA Tour’s long-term existence under threat.”

Three days after Monahan said the letter reached the Senate, a subcommittee opened an inquiry into the planned alliance between the PGA Tour, LIV Golf and the DP World Tour, with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund at the center of the controversy.

PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan will chair the resulting new company, while Monahan will be the CEO.

The PGA Tour operates as a tax-exempt organization, while the PIF and LIV lured multiple PGA veterans with guaranteed contracts over $200 million. The gray areas in the merger appear to be significant from a legal and operational perspective. Monahan said the PGA will continue to “operate as its own entity,” but Al-Rumayyan would hold a seat on the Tour board.

Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal sent letters to Monahan and LIV CEO Greg Norman on Monday citing “concerns” the government plans to raise around PIF and use of profit from the investment in the new alliance.

“PGA Tour’s agreement with PIF regarding LIV Golf raises concerns about the Saudi government’s role in influencing this effort and the risks posed by a foreign government entity assuming control over a cherished American institution,” Blumenthal wrote to the leadership of both circuits. “PIF has announced that it intends to use investments in sports to further the Saudi government’s strategic objectives.”

American and foreign players who united to defend the legacy of the PGA Tour, including Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland, shared their sense of betrayal after steadfastly supporting the PGA Tour and resisting massive paydays in the initial roster build of LIV Golf.

A key motive for the alliance is dissolving existing litigation between the rivals, which likely would end the discovery phase of any trial either side faced. However, the U.S. Department of Justice is in the midst of an investigation of the PGA Tour’s alleged monopolistic business practices and discovery could be possible in the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations review that was just launched to study the out-of-nowhere pact.

“Rather than a foreign-funded entity taking over an American sport, the end result is that the PIF has agreed to work within the existing golf ecosystem as a minority investor with the PGA Tour in full control,” Monahan wrote. “The PGA Tour is, and will remain, an American institution dedicated to its players and generating charity in the communities where we play.”

–Field Level Media

Rory McIlroy spent much of the past year defending the PGA Tour against the upstart LIV Golf tour. At the same time, Brooks Koepka served as one of the faces of the controversial rival circuit.

And just as the two golf leagues announced last week they will ally under one umbrella, McIlroy and Koepka will be paired together for the opening two rounds of the 123rd U.S. Open, which opens Thursday at the Los Angeles Country Club.

World No. 3 McIlroy and Koepka, who won last month’s PGA Championship, will tee off 4:54 p.m. ET and be joined in the pairing by Hideki Matsuyama of Japan, the 2021 Masters tournament winner.

But that won’t be the only group to watch at the U.S. Open, which features a handful of tempting trios.

Next among them is the group of World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, the 2022 Masters winner, Collin Morikawa and Los Angeles-area native Max Homa, now World No. 7. The latter is searching for his first major title, while Morikawa has two — the 2020 PGA Championship and the 2021 Open Championship. They will tee off at 11:13 a.m. ET on Thursday.

Current Masters champion Jon Rahm is paired in a high-profile group with Xander Schauffele and Viktor Hovland. The three players, all ranked in the top six in the world, will tee off at 11:24 a.m. in the opening round.

Phil Mickelson, who also jumped to the LIV circuit, is making another attempt to capture the U.S. Open — the only major title that has eluded him. He is set to tee off at 3:59 p.m. with Padraig Harrington and Keegan Bradley.

Defending U.S. Open champ Matt Fitzpatrick is paired with Cameron Smith, the reigning winner of the Open Championship. Joining them in the 4:32 p.m. group is Sam Bennett, holder of the U.S. Amateur title who turned pro two weeks ago following his season at Texas A&M.

And in another notable group, three-time major winner Jordan Spieth is joined by two players seeking their first major titles — Tony Finau and Patrick Cantlay. They tee off at 4:43 p.m.

The U.S. Open is returning to Los Angeles for the first time since 1948, when Ben Hogan won at Riviera Country Club.

–Field Level Media