2024 US Open: Top 10 power rankings at Pinehurst

Scottie Scheffler hasn’t teed it up competitively at Pinehurst No. 2, nor is it likely his best course fit out of this year’s four major championship venues.

All that said, and he’s still easily the No. 1 choice this week. How couldn’t he be?

With the run-in with the Louisville Police Department behind him, at least legally, the humble golfer can finally get back to focusing solely on golf. Well, and his newborn son.

Scheffler is the reigning Masters champ who was in contention to pick up the second leg of the season and career Grand Slam at the PGA Championship before the adrenaline wore off on the weekend and he was resigned to T-8th.

Scheffler is a menace at the majors with two wins (both at Augusta National) as part of 11 top-10s in 19 starts.

He picked up a whopping fifth PGA Tour victory of the year and 11th of his career by prevailing at last week’s Memorial Tournament. Scheffler has won at some historical venues this season at Bay Hill, ANGC, TPC Sawgrass, Harbour Town, and now Muirfield Village.

At the Memorial, the former Texas Longhorn outdueled fellow two-time major champion, Collin Morikawa, on Sunday. While Scheffler wasn’t his sharpest in that final round, he made the shots when he needed to and won on a major championship-caliber setup.

The next thing on his to-do list is to win a major that’s not the Masters.

Scheffler at the US Open has made four of six cuts with three straight finishes inside the top seven since 2021. Scheffler brought in T-2nd at Brookline in 2022 and solo third last year at Los Angeles Country Club.

Through June 2, the 27-year-old leads the PGA Tour in a slew of categories. It starts with Strokes Gained: Total (2.842), which seems to me like it should be the new measure to determine the Vardon Trophy winner.

Scheffler is incredibly straight off the tee for how long he is, which allows him to rank second in SG: Off-the-Tee (.947). He’s also first in SG: Approach (1.348), which is what sticks out to me this week. If he plays his game and finds the right quadrants on these treacherous Donald Ross greens, he won’t have to fret too much about his mercurial putter.