Horses for Courses: Xander Schauffele has consistency needed for windy, difficult Shinnecock Hills

The third major of the season is here. That’s right, the U.S. Open is upon us, and the golf world heads to historic Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in New York.

This will be the third time this century that the U.S. Open has been contested at Shinnecock Hills, following stops here in 2004 and 2018, and the sixth time overall.

As we’ve noticed over the years, the U.S. Open is a true test of skill. It’s a good mix of length with a demand for precision. A complete game is always necessary because the U.S. Open courses are so difficult. Additionally, as we’ve seen in the last two renditions of the U.S. Open hosted at Shinnecock, this golf course is about as hard as you could get.

Played up in the Northeast, the golf course gets a little bit of everything. It has coastal island vibes, with really strong winds pushing in off the Atlantic Ocean, which means when the wind is up, this golf course is almost unplayable. And this week, especially on Thursday, we will see some of the hardest winds of the season.

Mixing in the next element of length, the 7,440-yard, par-70 golf course is brutally long. To make that even more difficult, the rough here is thick, measuring five inches long. And let’s say you bypass the rough. You are going to be playing out of the wispy fescue. Neither looks all that fun.

As if those conditions weren’t enough, the greens here are almost impossible. In 2018, we remember how difficult it was for golfers to hold their balls on these greens because they were firm and fast, with a ton of undulation. While the superintendents aimed not to make the golf course as difficult as that season, I fear that, at least on Thursday, the wind will make that nearly impossible. This course is going to play tough. Whether the field likes it or not.

Please bear with me as I lay out a few lists I think are important to review before making any financial decisions for this golf tournament. Given the fact that the wind is going to be insane this week, let's look at the best golfers in the wind over the last three years (Data via Betsperts Golf).

• 1. Scottie Scheffler
• 2. Rory McIlroy
• 3. Collin Morikawa
• 4. Jon Rahm
• 5. Corey Conners
• 6. Sepp Straka

From there, I want to look at which golfers have gained the most strokes over the last year. As I mentioned before, this will be the truest test of golf they’ll see all season. Sure, there will be some variance due to the wind, since golfers will need a bit of that luck factor in the heavy gusts, but modeling for luck is impossible. So, I want to find the best golfers over the last year.

• 1. Scottie Scheffler
• 2. Tommy Fleetwood
• 3. Matt Fitzpatrick
• 4. Rory McIlroy
• 5. Cameron Young
• 6. Russell Henley

Matt Fitzpatrick to win (+2300)

What a fantastic season it has been for Matt Fitzpatrick (+2300 at DraftKings). It’s always interesting to see how golfers can parlay their Ryder Cup success into wins the next season, and it feels like Fitzpatrick carried that momentum all the way through the offseason.

He helped win the Ryder Cup in September and then won the DP World Tour Championship in November. Then, when he traveled stateside, he finished ninth at the WM Phoenix Open. And it wasn’t long before he started really contending, finishing second at THE PLAYERS Championship and winning the Valspar Championship the very next week. Then, after a decent showing at the Masters, he won the RBC Heritage the following week after holding off Scottie Scheffler in a playoff.

Then he went back-to-back at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, helping his brother, Alex Fitzpatrick (+10000), earn his PGA TOUR card. He did have a slight wobble at the Truist Championship, but after that, it’s been pretty good golf. The RBC Canadian Open has been his best outing of the last four events, where he finished runner-up and gained a ton of strokes with his ball-striking.

Betting on Matt Fitzpatrick at this number feels comfortable because there’s this level of security Fitzpatrick often brings. He’s typically a guy who is going to be playing out of the fairway and hitting greens, and his short game is actually some of the best in the field.

Where he might struggle are those putts outside of 25 feet, but given the course conditions, there will be a lot of golfers in this field that struggle from that distance. I think that will be the neutralizer, or at least the equalizer, that allows Fitzpatrick to contend.

Just looking at his comparison to the field over the last 36 rounds, he is second in Good Drive Percentage, second in scrambling, 18th in driving distance, eighth in bogey avoidance, and fifth in Strokes Gained: Total (data via RickRunGood).

Oh yeah, did I mention Fitzpatrick has already won a U.S. Open? So, it’s not like we are laying these shorter prices on just anyone or a guy without major experience. Fitzpatrick is the real deal, and his price is justified.

Now, before I give you my best value on the board, I want to share the results from the model I built. This is my main model, which does not factor in wind conditions. Some could view that as a positive, some could view that as a negative, but personally, I like to build secondary and tertiary models that directly correlate with the conditions and then compare them against each other. But for the bulk of my bets, this will be the model I lean on most.

• 1. Matt Fitzpatrick
• 2. Scottie Scheffler
• 3. Cameron Young
• 4. Rory McIlroy
• 5. Tommy Fleetwood
• 6. Collin Morikawa
• 7. Xander Schauffele
• 8. Jon Rahm
• 9. Russell Henley
• 10. Ludvig Åberg

Best value on the board: Xander Schauffele, Top 20 (-102)

There are some instances in this industry where we look forward to a spot. We basically have spots circled on our calendar. Xander Schauffele (+1600) at Shinnecock Hills was something I circled almost immediately.

It hasn’t been the best year and a half for Schauffele by his standards, mainly because he has yet to win a golf tournament. But what we can hang our hats on with Schauffele is how great he plays in majors.

Since 2022, Schauffele has only finished outside the top 20 in a major once. That was in 2025 at Quail Hollow for the PGA Championship, where his irons were horrible. That marks 16 of his last 17 major championship starts finishing inside the top 20.

It feels like consistency alone is enough for me to take this bet. But there’s more to it than just the hit rate.

Schauffele’s game is built for long and hard golf courses. He’s also really good at scrambling. While he might not be the most accurate golfer off the tee, he is still playing out of the fairway more than a lot of golfers in the field.

What’s awesome about Schauffele is that his game is complete. It’s not a golf game that is just leaning on his driver, or just leaning on his putter, or even just his approach play. It’s a golf game that, at baseline, is good everywhere in the bag. And then during his best weeks, he will take over, typically with insane approach play.

Having already finished inside the top 20 here in 2018, he must feel a lot of confidence. Could this be the tournament that turns his season around? Possibly. But one thing I know is that Schauffele will be hanging around near the top of the leaderboard come Sunday.