U.S. Open 2019: Dark Horse candidates for Pebble Beach

Emiliano Grillo – 125/1

From tee-to-green, Emiliano Grillo is one of the better players in all of golf. Somewhat along the lines of Woodland, in fact. He is 21st off the tee, and 12th in approaching the green. He isn’t near as long, averaging under 300 yards, but still respectable ranking 67th in the PGA.

He is quite accurate though, hitting fairways 67.28% of the time. Pair that with his 69.6% GIR, and Grillo could avoid a lot of the trouble rough areas around the greens at Pebble. His game around the green shows that he needs to do this to stay successful as well.

He is actual a below average player on short shots, ranking 148th, at -.118 SG. That is on normal courses. At a place like Pebble, where professionals are going to struggle getting the ball anywhere near the hole on trouble chips, it’s going to be much more likely to see a player take four shots, instead of getting up-and-down.

Grillo has been playing strongly lately, with seven of his last eight rounds being at or under par. The only one over par was day four at The Charles Schwab, where he shot a +1 71.

Even going back through his last 16 rounds, there are only two rough days, where he carded a 76 on two different occasions. His worst round other than that are some 71’s, which is nothing to scoff at. If Grillo can stay consistent like he has shown over the last four tournaments, I like him to make a little noise as a dark horse, and take down his first ever top ten at a major.