The USGA used to be a lot more daring when they were formulating playing groups for rounds one and two of the U.S. Open, but there’s still plenty of scope to get creative.
They’d usually group the three players whom they considered to be the best or most high-profile without a major victory. Being in such a group meant you were widely regarded as a top-class golfer, but you were trying to make yourself ineligible for future selection asap. That tradition petered out towards the end of the noughties.
One that was less fun to be in was the ‘stocky’ group, where three of the heavier golfers in the field were placed together. What probably began as an adolescent-esque joke became a regular feature, but when Shane Lowry, Brendon de Jonge and Kevin Stadler were grouped together at Pinehurst in 2014, Lowry, the most slender of the trio, was less than impressed.
In a diary for the Irish Times, he labelled the move “cheeky” and suggested that the USGA were “making a mockery” of the trio, and that it put them at risk of being unfairly heckled by the galleries. He was right, of course; it was cheeky, the players were being mocked, and did encourage unfair heckling, and, for better or worse, that was the end of the ‘husky boy’ grouping.
They still like to get creative, however, and that can be seen in Pádraig Harrington’s group at 12:19pm. At 54, Harrington is the oldest player in the field by a full eight years – as it happens, the second-oldest is also an Irishman as 46-year-old Graeme McDowell just edges out Justin Rose and Adam Scott who will celebrate their 46th birthdays a fortnight apart in July – and he’s playing alongside 17-year-old Miles Russell, the youngest in the 156-man field. Cameron Smith bridges the age gap between them.
The tradition of pairing the reigning U.S. Open champion, the reigning Open champion, and the U.S. Amateur champion continues, and J J Spaun’s defence will begin with Scottie Scheffler and Mason Howell for company at 1:14.
Rory McIlroy’s 12:52 group sees him alongside fellow European Ryder Cup stars Ludvig Åberg and Tommy Fleetwood, and that trio should be more than comfortable in each others’ company and it may be needed as they go back into the lion’s den – or at least the fringes of it – in New York, just nine months after being very much public enemies at Bethpage.
They also like to pair former U.S. Open champions together. 2013 champion Justin Rose, 2015 winner Jordan Spieth, and 2021 victor Jon Rahm will take to the tee at the same time at 7:09pm, as will Dustin Johnson (2016), Gary Woodland (2019), and Wyndham Clark (2023) at the earlier time of 6:36.
Bryson DeChambeau, and Viktor Hovland and Matt Fitzpatrick may have been on opposite sides of the battlefield at Bethpage last September, but they are all former U.S. Amateur champions so that grouping at 6:25 has a nice symmetry to it.
PGA Championship winners aren’t forgotten about either, with Jason Day, who won at Whistling Straits in 2015, Collin Morikawa who prevailed at Harding Park in 2020, and reigning champion Aaron Rai grouped together at 6:14.
At 6:25 there’s a nod to the Presidents Cup which takes place at Medinah this September as New Zealand’s Ryan Fox, Rio Hisatsune of Japan, and Canadian Corey Conners, all likely to wear the Internationals colours, join forces to tackle the United States’ national open and one of its most iconic venues.
And finally, Shane Lowry’s grouping could scarcely be more different than that in 2014. Joaquin Niemann and Alex Smalley combined have only marginally more mass than either De Jonge or Stadler individually, and they are all much more likely to have a late Sunday tee time than either Stadler, De Jonge, or the 2014 version of Lowry.
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