Justin Rose goes in search of a successful defence of his US Open Championship title this week hoping that the strategy which served him so well at Merion last year will again come to the fore when he tackles Pinehurst No. 2 this week.
Rose – one of 42 European Tour Members in the field – is looking to join an elite group of players to have won back-to-back US Opens and first since American Curtis Strange, who beat Sir Nick Faldo in a play-off in 1988 before retaining the trophy the following year.
Ben Hogan also achieved the feat, winning at Merion in 1950 and Oakland Hills in 1951; and the sole European to do so was Scotland’s Willie Anderson, whose hat-trick of titles from 1903-1905 has never been repeated.
Rose, however, is unfazed by the weight of history against him. The 33 year old, who will play alongside five-time Major Champion Phil Mickelson and the current Amateur Champion Matthew Fitzpatrick in the first two rounds, said: “The record books show that the US Open is the hardest Major to defend and I think that’s because the venues can be so different from year to year.
“But Olympic Club [in 2012] and Merion were very different, and but for an atrocious week on and around the greens at Olympic, I could’ve won there. I don’t feel I have to rely on the course to suit me – my game is good enough to give me chances to win anywhere.
“The important thing is that you see the course the right way, and you develop your strategy the right way. You’ve got to try to play to a number so whether you feel like that number is eight under or even par, you build your strategy accordingly.
“At Merion last year, I was building my strategy to play even par golf; but then I got to the course and everyone was talking about 12 and 14 under for the week. At that point I was a little worried, but I’m glad that my game plan worked out for me.”
European Tour Members have enjoyed tremendous success at the US Open in recent years, with the Northern Irish duo of Graeme McDowell and Rory McIlroy having triumphed at Pebble Beach and Congressional in 2010 and 2011 respectively.
McIlroy heads to North Carolina as the reigning BMW PGA Champion after winning The European Tour’s flagship event at Wentworth Club last month, whilst McDowell will hope to regain his early season form, when he reached the quarter finals of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship and finished in the top ten of the WGC-Cadillac Championship.
The pair will play together alongside another former US Open Champion, American Webb Simpson, on the first two days at Pinehurst No. 2 which, at 7,562 yards, is the third longest course in US Open history.
That should play into the hands of McIlroy, who triumphed by eight shots at Congressional’s 7,574 yards Blue Course, the longest used in the US Open.
With Thomas Börn missing the second Major of the season through injury, McIlroy will be hoping to make inroads into the Dane’s lead in The Race to Dubai.
Last year’s Race to Dubai winner Henrik Stenson, whose last competitive appearance was a top five finish on home soil in the Nordea Masters, which was won by Thailand’s Thongchai Jaidee, has been paired with American Matt Kuchar and England’s Lee Westwood, whose search for an elusive first Major title will have been boosted by an encouraging performance at the Masters Tournament and his subsequent victory in the Maybank Malaysian Open.
A total of ten European Tour Members will be making their US Open debuts at Pinehurst: Lucas Bjerregaard, Victor Dubuisson, Oliver Fisher, Shiv Kapur, Max Kieffer, Pablo Larrazábal, Tom Lewis, Joost Luiten, Garth Mulroy and Andrea Pavan.
