US Open storylines will push PGA Tour-LIV Golf issue to back-burner

Golf

By Mark Cannizzaro

June 11, 2023 | 5:39am

LOS ANGELES — There will be a U.S. Open conducted this week at the Los Angeles Country Club.

Golf will be played by the best players in the world.

A champion will be crowned in the third major championship of the year.

As the landscape of men’s professional golf shifted seismically this past week, with the stunning announcement that the PGA Tour and LIV Golf will merge after two years of bitter battles on golf courses and in courtrooms, the actual golf had been put on the back burner.

The shocking merger will be the talk of the week leading up to the opening round Thursday, but once the tournament arrives, that talk will become a trivial footnote to the competition on the golf course.

There are, after all, numerous compelling storylines at this U.S. Open that have nothing to do with LIV Golf or the merger between the PGA Tour and the controversial Saudi-backed entity.

Let us begin with Brooks Koepka, who not only won the PGA Championship three weeks ago, but also nearly won the Masters in April.

Koepka, who finished runner-up to Jon Rahm at Augusta National, is in perhaps his finest form and his most healthy state.

He hasn’t exactly been grinding on the golf course since he won his fifth career major championship at Oak Hill.

He has been seen at Miami Heat and Florida Panthers playoff games.

Still, Koepka, who left the PGA Tour for LIV a year ago, is one of the favorites to win the U.S. Open for a third time in his career.

What about Rahm, the No. 2 player in the world rankings who already has won four tournaments this year, including the Masters?

He has been relatively quiet of late, but cannot be counted out.

Neither can Scottie Scheffler, who’s ranked No. 1, has won the Waste Management Open and the Players Championship, and is in contention at every tournament he enters.

At most sports books, Scheffler is the betting favorite to win. He was dead last in strokes gained putting, giving up more than eight strokes to the field on the green and still finished just one shot out of a playoff at the Memorial Tournament two weeks ago.

That’s all you need to know about how well Scheffler is playing tee to green.

He has finished no worse than tied for fifth in his past four starts despite losing more than 4.5 strokes putting twice.

In 2023, his worst finish in 13 starts was tied for 12th at the Genesis Invitational. In those 13 starts, he has lost strokes putting six times.

In Scheffler’s six career tournaments with 13.74 or more strokes gained tee to green,…