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Spaun shocked the golf world last year, winning the U.S. Open at Oakmont CC by two strokes. Oakmont is a similar track to Shinnecock, as both these courses are long and challenging par 70s in the Northeast. Spaun winning again this week is unlikely, but him finishing inside the top-20 in his first attempt at Shinnecock is very possible.<\/p>\n
Spaun\u2019s victory at Oakmont isn\u2019t the only time he played well in the Northeast last season. Spaun finished T-14 at the Travelers Championship in Connecticut in his next start after the U.S. Open. Then, at the Ryder Cup in September, which was played at Bethpage Black in New York, Spaun finished third for Team USA in points, despite it being his Ryder Cup debut.<\/p>\n
Now, Spaun makes his way to the New York-based Shinnecock in terrific form. The 35-year-old has made six of his last eight cuts and five of these finishes have been top-15 results. Spaun began this run with a win at the Valero Texas Open and he is coming off a T-12 at the Memorial two weeks ago. Spaun has been lights out with his irons this season, ranking third in SG APP and his skills in this department set Spaun up well for Shinnecock. When Koepka won at this course in 2018, he led the field in SG APP.<\/p>\n
Hojgaard being a -118 favorite to win this tournament matchup vs. Woodland doesn\u2019t make much sense. Hojgaard has finished inside the top-10 four times this season, but he is in a funk right now, missing back-to-back cuts. Meanwhile, Woodland has only missed one cut in his last nine starts and he has finished inside the top-20 five times during this span, including a six-shot win at the Houston Open in March. <\/p>\n
When we compare this field\u2019s last 24 rounds, Woodland ranks 39th in total strokes gained while Hojgaard ranks 50th. Not only does Woodland hold the edge in current form, he has far more experience at the U.S. Open. Woodland has made 9-of-15 cuts and produced three top-25 finishes at this major, including a win at Pebble Beach in 2019. Woodland also finished a solid T-36 at Shinnecock in 2018. Hojgaard, on the other hand, has only competed at one U.S. Open, finishing T-50 at Pinehurst No. 2 two years ago.<\/p>\n
Hojgaard missing the cut at Shinnecock wouldn\u2019t be surprising, whereas Woodland brings decent upside and he is the clear choice for this matchup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Hunter provides his top golf bets on DraftKings Sportsbook for the 2026 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[1561,2812],"class_list":["post-24068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-j-j-spaun","tag-j-j-spaun","tag-top"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}