Tuesday Tidbits: Scheffler coy, Morikawa cautious, Rahm ready to rumble

LOS ANGELES – Major championship Tuesday is always the busiest when it comes to hearing from players and seeing them put in their biggest practice efforts before starting to wind down ahead of Thursday’s opening round.

As you look for betting or gaming edge here’s what we’ve learned from the ground at Los Angeles Country Club.

Fab 5 fit recent U.S. Open winner trend

Only five PGA TOUR players fit the statistical trend of the last four U.S. Open winners.

Matt Fitzpatrick (2022), Jon Rahm (2021), Bryson DeChambeau (2020) and Gary Woodland (2019) all had something in common leading into their U.S. Open triumphs.

They sat inside the top 10 of Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee; inside the top 20 of SG: Tee-to-Green and inside the top 25 of SG: Total.

The five players who fit this profile leading into Los Angeles Country Club this season are:

Scottie Scheffler (+650 to win): Ranks first in all three categories.

Patrick Cantlay (+1600 to win): Ranks 2nd OTT, 6th TTG and 5th Total.

Rory McIlroy (+1100 to win): Ranks 4th OTT, 3rd TTG and 8th Total.

Viktor Hovland (+1600 to win): Ranks 5th OTT, 11th TTG and 13th Total.

Tyrrell Hatton (+3300 to win): Ranks 8th OTT, 7th TTG and 3rd Total.

Morikawa pain free but cautious in injury return

Collin Morikawa will be activating his glutes this week at the U.S. Open as the former Los Angeles native is set to squat down to tee up his ball after back spasms forced his withdrawal from the recent Memorial Tournament.

Morikawa has drifted to +3300 to win at Los Angeles Country Club in his hometown after opting out of the final round at Muirfield Village nine days ago when he suffered spasms in his warmup. He was just two shots off the 54-hole lead at the time.

Same warmup, same routine, doing everything the same, just teeing it up weirdly,” Morikawa said when updating his condition. “I pretty much squat down and tee it up.”

It is one of his precautionary measures he will undertake to give himself the best possible chance of claiming a third major, and first U.S. Open.

“It sucked, because I felt like I was grinding for three days to put myself in contention… who knows who could have happened, but it's very unfortunate. It sucked. It's a course that I loved. I took a few days off, got some rest, got some rehab, talked with my team, we got started hitting balls late last week, and we're swinging fine.

“There's no pain swinging right now, which is great. I might be teeing up kind of weirdly this week, so don't take too much into that, but it's just precautionary… swing-wise there's no pain, which is great. I've hit out of rough, I've hit out of bunkers, no pain, nothing lingering anywhere else in the body either, so that's good.”

Rahm confidence high akin to Masters

Jon Rahm says his confidence is as high as it was heading into Augusta National where he famously won the Masters in April as he looks to add a second U.S. Open title to his name.

Having originally opened at +1200 with Scottie Scheffler last year, Rahm sits at +1000 with BetMGM Sportsbook while Scheffler has firmed to the +650 favorite despite the fact Rahm has four wins in 2023 compared to Scheffler’s two.

“My belief in myself is the same (as it was leading into the Masters). I haven't played my best golf the last two starts… (but) my confidence level is very high. You have to have that belief in yourself as a competitor no matter what happens.”

The Spaniard, who won the 2021 U.S. Open a few hours away at Torrey Pines, was quick to throw caution towards a growing narrative that the fairways are wider and more forgiving than some U.S. Open’s past.

“I think it's deceptively wide. Those fairways look bigger than they play. You still need to strike it really well tee to green to be able to give yourself some looks at birdie,” Rahm stressed.

“It's a design that I like. It makes you think. It's very intricate green complexes. You've got to play the angles a little bit, and especially if you miss the greens, you're going to find yourself in some interesting spots to get up-and-down. It's got everything. It's got all the ingredients to be a great week.”

Scheffler plays down putting woes

World No.1 Scottie Scheffler has refused to rule out changing his putter ahead of the opening round of the U.S. Open but downplayed his efforts on the greens being a major problem.

Scheffler finished last in Strokes Gained: Putting at the Charles Schwab Challenge and the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday yet was still just one shot out of a playoff at both. He was seen testing a slightly bigger putter at LACC ahead of Thursday’s first round.

At the same time, he is dominating the PGA TOUR in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, Tee-to-Green, Approach and Total.

“You guys can find out Thursday,” Scheffler said of a potential switch.

“I don't ever take decisions on switching equipment lightly. I think it's strange that I've been struggling the past few weeks with my putter… Memorial obviously had an off week on the greens or probably would've won that one.

“Sometimes you just got to bring another putter around there to make the original one scared. I've never really been one to try and overthink things, so I try and keep things as simple as possible. I looked at that one that's a little bit bigger, and I still am kind of undecided on what I think of it.”

Scheffler is the +650 betting favorite as oddsmakers expect even just a minor improvement on the greens could generate a near unbeatable performance. He also spent some time working on his putting with long time coach Randy Smith last week.

“Randy, has taught me since I was probably seven years old, and he's taught me everything I know about the game. I actually got to see him a couple times last week, which was nice. It was good just getting him out to the course again to hang out. He had surgery a couple months ago, and so we got some good work in on the greens.”

Cantlay admits major performance not up to par

Former UCLA star Patrick Cantlay, who has played LACC more than most in the field, admits he hasn’t put his best foot forward in majors thus far.

The eight-time PGA TOUR winner and 2021 FedExCup champion has 25 majors under his belt with a best finish of T3 at the 2019 PGA Championship. He has finished inside the top 14 of his last four majors but has much higher expectations.

“I’m off to a slow start I would say. I'm looking to improve that,” Cantlay said of his major career. “I’ve just got to play more and win one. That'll change the narrative pretty quick.”

The Californian is +1600 to secure his first major championship and expects there to be a little more volatility on the leaderboard compared to traditional U.S. Open grinds.

“There's just more an extreme collection of really tough holes and then birdieable holes… there's just holes where you feel like you should definitely make birdies and give yourself looks,” he explained.

“There are some early wedges you can get; 1 you can get. But then there are some really hard holes, and if you're not playing from the fairway, they can get really difficult. I think the harder holes may be harder and the easier holes may be a little bit easier than a standard U.S. Open.”

Home game Homa set to try less

Max Homa, the six-time PGA TOUR winner with four victories in his home state of California, is placing an emphasis on trying less as he tackles his hometown U.S. Open.

The Los Angeles native is the biggest liability at BetMGM in outright and first round leader betting after winning twice in California already this season. Homa opened at +5000 to win and has moved to +2800 while he holds 14.7% of the handle for the first-round leader market at +4000.

His best finish in a U.S. Open to this point is a T47 but he holds the LACC course record of 61 from back in his college days.

“You just look at how I played every other major trying way too hard, so I'm quite good at that. 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,” Homa explained.

“Fortunately, I'm coming off a PGA Championship that I tried too hard at and it's right on the tip of my brain not to do that this week, so I am a little bit more easy on myself.

“I’ve seen examples in just generally trying to be too perfect. When you're trying too hard you care too much about where the ball goes. You're going to hit fairways; you're going to miss fairways. You're going to hit greens; you're going to miss greens. You're going to hit putts that go in and some that miss.

“I think it just comes down to stacking those up over the course of a week and seeing where that takes you. Like I said, I've done a very poor job of that in a lot of big golf tournaments, but especially the majors. I've done a good job of that in some other events, so I'm just trying to find whatever is in those moments where it's been great and take that to a championship like this.”

Hadwin not hurt by security hit

Canadian Adam Hadwin has declared himself fit to play after the infamous takedown he suffered trying to celebrate countryman Nick Taylor’s win at the RBC Canadian Open.

Hadwin was tackled by security on the green trying to spray Taylor with champaign during a misunderstanding.

“Yeah, I feel fine,” Hadwin told Canadian journalist Jon McCarthy on Tuesday. “No after-effects or anything.”

“I don’t know if I’ve ever been tackled in my life,” he added. “I’ve shied away from contact sports for a reason, but thankfully I held up well.”

Hadwin is +450 to be the leading Canadian this week and +20000 to win a maiden major, with Taylor and Corey Conners priced above him. He said he does not blame the security guard for doing his job.

“I think it was just one of those freak incidents,” Hadwin said. “I kind of came around the corner just as hot as he did, and I’m sure in the moment the entire security team was told not to lose contain on the situation because if Nick wins it could get crazy, and I was a plain-clothed, hoodie- and jeans-wearing guy coming in hot.”

Recent PGA Championship winner Brooks Koepka hopes the USGA makes LACC as tough as possible this week. Koepka opened at +3300 with BetMGM last year but after a runner up finish at the Masters and a fifth major win at Oak Hill he heads into the week at +1100.

“I enjoy the chaos… the more chaotic things get the easier it gets for me. 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,” Koepka said.

“I just love when maybe somewhere closer to even par wins. If it's going to be a birdiefest where 20-, 21-under wins, that's really not my style.

“I just feel like I can outlast everybody when it comes to having to par things to death or just kind of wearing guys out on the golf course and just mentally beating you and knowing when it's my time to kind of take that opportunity and go with it.