U.S. Open Heading for the Hills

But, accuracy off-the-tee is often as important as length; Johnson is always long but often wayward, finding the fairway just 58.31% of the time.

Factor in GIR from over 200-yards and Johnson’s prospects, perhaps surprisingly, take a turn for the worse, hitting the green just 53.33% of the time, his single putt percentage below 40%; DJ has been known to get the jitters over those vital putts, often par-saves from 5ft – 10ft, and he’s way off the scale as the 188th best on the PGA Tour, not much better from 15ft – 20ft, putts often for birdie in 118th place, and 87th in holing-out from between 20ft – 25ft.

If not DJ, who admittedly rates highly in the only statistics that ultimately count, scoring average (69.19), money won (US$6,006,600) and wins (three-from-eight), then who might inherit the crown?

Statistical analysis can be about as reliable as a mystic reading tea-leaves, but the 2017 U.S. Open Championship winner, who will have earned every cent of his US$2m first prize (which, generous though it may be compares unfavourably with the US$3.5m on offer to the men’s and women’s singles champions at tennis’s U.S. Open) around a course that is quite different to those the PGA Tour pros play over week-in, week-out.