Who Can Actually Win the 2026 U.S. Open? Recent History Says One of These Four Golfers

On Thursday, 156 players will begin their week teeing off the 1st or 10th hole at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club with dreams of hoisting the U.S. Open trophy by Sunday afternoon.

But only one player can win.

The previous 125 editions of the U.S. Open have taught us that, in reality, anyone can win. If you qualify or are exempt, you have a chance. That’s how you get golf movies starring Shia LaBeouf greenlit in Hollywood. But that answer simply isn’t good enough. It’s been well over a century since Francis Ouimet came out of nowhere to win the 1913 U.S. Open. The game has changed significantly over the last three decades or so and provided us with enough data to filter through the outliers and project a champion as best we can.

So, who can actually win the tournament this week in Southampton?

In this piece, we’ll be looking at the last 10 U.S. Open champions—from Dustin Johnson’s triumphant weekend at Oakmont in 2016 to J.J. Spaun’s surprising win there last year—to find any commonalities among champions and plug that criteria into the field of 156 players. We’ll see who is still standing at the end of this experiment.

Before we begin, let’s meet our last 10 U.S. Open champions who will be our lodestar in this exercise:

YEAR	GOLFER	SITE
2025	J.J. Spaun	Oakmont C.C.
2024	Bryson DeChambeau	Pinehurst Resort & C.C.
2023	Wyndham Clark	The Los Angeles C.C.
2022	Matt Fitzpatrick	The Country Club
2021	Jon Rahm	Torrey Pines G.C.
2020	Bryson DeChambeau	Winged Foot G.C.
2019	Gary Woodland	Pebble Beach Golf Links
2018	Brooks Koepka	Shinnecock Hills G.C.
2017	Brooks Koepka	Erin Hills
2016	Dustin Johnson	Oakmont C.C.

And here we go:

What can the advanced stats tell us?

The last 10 winners of the U.S. Open have one thing in common: In the year they won the U.S. Open, they finished that season in the top 25 in true strokes gained. What is true strokes gained, you ask? Data Golf defines it as “the number of strokes you beat the field by in a given round, adjusted for the strength of that field,” with the average for all PGA Tour rounds being zero.

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So, to put it simply, the 2026 U.S. Open champion will be found in that top-25 leaderboard.

Heading into the U.S. Open, Scottie Scheffler unsurprisingly leads the way this season with +2.93 true strokes gained, well ahead of Jon Rahm (+2.39) in second place. In a fun twist, one underdog found his way into the top 25—Jackson Koivun, the top-ranked amateur in the world who enters the tournament with a +1.33 strokes gained this year.

Mr. Koivun, sir, you have a chance. And right off the bat, our list of potential U.S. Open winners has been chopped down to 25:

Scottie Scheffler (+2.93 true strokes gained)
Jon Rahm (+2.39)
Rory McIlroy (+2.26)
Cameron Young (+2.22)
Jake Knapp (+2.12)
Matt Fitzpatrick (+2.06)
Ludvig Aberg (+1.93)
Si Woo Kim (+1.93)
Xander Schauffele (+1.90)
Collin Morikawa (+1.84)
Russell Henley (+1.83)
Patrick Reed (+1.82)
Chris Gotterup (+1.73)
Patrick Cantlay (+1.72)
Tommy Fleetwood (+1.67)
Maverick McNealy (+1.63)
Sam Burns (+1.59)
Adam Scott (+1.56)
Min Woo Lee (+1.52)
Jacob Bridgeman (+1.52)
Ryan Gerard (+1.51)
Harris English (+1.42)
Justin Rose (+1.37)
Shane Lowry (+1.36)
Jackson Koivun (a; +1.33)

Although 25 golfers is just 16% of the field, it’s still too many potential champions. Let’s hop back in the analytics golf cart and keep rolling:

Experience matters … as does age

The U.S. Open, no matter the course it's held at, is the ultimate test for the game’s best golfers.

It typically takes years of shortcomings and disappointments to build up enough callus and confidence to compete on Sunday to bring home the major. No player has won the U.S. Open in their first appearance since the aforementioned Ouimet in 1913.

Of the tournament’s last 10 champions, eight finally hoisted the trophy in their fifth career appearance at the U.S. Open or later. The only outliers there are Spaun, who won it in his second appearance, and Clark, in his third.

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Recent history has taught us that U.S. Open champs usually have been in the mix in years prior before winning it, too. Eight of the last 10 champions tallied a T25 or better at a previous U.S. Open before finally hoisting the trophy.

Age matters, too. The last 10 winners have all been 27 or older. Since 2000, just five U.S. Open champs have been younger than 27, the latest being 21-year-old Jordan Spieth in 2015.

Based on the criteria to be at least 27 years old making their fifth trip (or more) to the U.S. Open with a T25 finish or better under their belt, we lose seven inexperienced golfers from our 25-man list: Chris Gotterup, Jackson Koivun (a), Jacob Bridgeman, Jake Knapp, Ludvig Aberg, Maverick McNealy and Ryan Gerard.

The U.S. Open is a grind, though. It's a physical challenge, especially this year with the windy conditions at Shinnecock. The winners often are in their peak years as an athlete. The last 10 winners have all been 35 or younger. In fact, since 2000, just two golfers over the age of 35 have won the U.S. Open—Michael Campbell (36; 2005) and Angel Cabrera (37; 2007).

When we cut out golfers over the age of 35, we’re down to 12 who can win the 2026 U.S. Open. Sorry, Rory. Here is that list:

Scottie Scheffler
Jon Rahm
Cameron Young
Matt Fitzpatrick
Si Woo Kim
Xander Schauffele
Collin Morikawa
Patrick Reed
Patrick Cantlay
Tommy Fleetwood
Sam Burns
Min Woo Lee

It takes a particular set of skills …

But that’s not all the advanced numbers say.

Just about all of the 10 most recent U.S. Open champions have been elite compared to the rest of the field in a certain aspect of their game. In the year they won the U.S. Open, eight of the past 10 champions have ranked in the top 10 in one of these categories: PUTT (strokes gained putting), ARG (strokes gained around the green), APP (strokes gained approach), OTT (strokes gained off the tee) and T2G (strokes gained tee to green). Six of the 10 have ranked in the top 10 in strokes gained off the tee, which will be especially important this year at Shinnecock considering drives are expected to be at a premium to survive the course’s tough conditions.

Of our 12 remaining golfers, eight currently rank in the top 10 in one of those categories listed above. But four stick out as players who rank in multiple categories, just like over half of our most recent U.S. Open champs.

The final group

Just four of the 156 players in the 2026 U.S. Open Field meet all of our criteria in our study of the past 10 tournament champions. These players all:

Are aged 27 to 35
Have played in at least four prior U.S. Open tournaments
Have a finish of T25 or better at a past U.S. Open
Currently rank in the top 25 in true strokes gained
Currently rank in the top 10 in multiple categories: PUTT, ARG, APP, OTT and T2G

This list: Matt Fitzpatrick, Jon Rahm, Scottie Scheffler and Cameron Young.

Fizpatrick, 31, is playing in his 12th U.S. Open and is a former winner (in 2022). He currently ranks sixth in APP, third in T2G and sixth in true strokes gained.

Rahm, 31, also has won the U.S. Open before (in 2021) and is entering his 10th appearance in the major. He ranks second in true strokes gained, fourth in T2G, 10th in OTT and 10th in APP.

Scheffler is chasing history this week at Shinnecock, trying to become the seventh man in history to win the career grand slam in golf. The 29-year-old doesn’t have a U.S. Open win on his stacked résumé but does have a T2 finish to his name in 2022. The 2026 U.S. Open will be his ninth. Scheffler leads all of golf in total strokes gained and ranks fourth in OTT and first in T2G.

And finally, the 29-year-old Young aims to win his first career major this weekend. He finished fourth in last year’s event and will try to improve on that in his seventh career appearance at the U.S. Open. Entering the tournament, Young ranks fourth in total strokes gained, second in OTT and fifth in T2G.

There you have it. If recent history has taught us anything, one of those four golfers will be celebrating on the 18th green on Sunday evening.

But as we know, anything can happen. Bring on the tournament.

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