US Open: For the first two rounds of the 123rd US Open, Rory McIlroy has been paired with reigning PGA Championship winner Brooks Koepka and former Masters champion Hideki Matsuyama.
McIlroy has been given a late-early draw for his next attempt to break his major drought, with the world No 3 teeing off at 1.54pm local time (9.54pm BST) on Thursday before teeing off again at 8.24am on Friday at Los Angeles Country Club.
On Sunday, McIlroy finished tied-ninth after a level-par 72, missing out on a third consecutive RBC Canadian Open championship. McIlroy is now focused on winning his fifth major title and first since winning the PGA Championship in 2014.
Following a runner-up finish at The Masters, Koepka won his fifth major at Oak Hill last month, and the LIV golfer has the potential this week to join Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods as the only players to have won both the PGA Championship and the US Open three times.
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, who has finished no worse than 12th in every PGA Tour start this season, will begin his campaign at 8.13am local time, alongside two-time major champion Collin Morikawa and home favourite Max Homa.
Morikawa would be three-quarters of the way to completing the career Grand Slam, having won the PGA Championship in 2020 and The Open in 2021, while Homa established the course record at LA Country Club in his Pac-12 victory in 2013 and is pursuing his first major championship.
Masters champion Jon Rahm, who won the US Open in 2021, is also out early and will be joined by Ryder Cup teammates Viktor Hovland and Xander Schauffele, who are both ranked in the world’s top six and looking for their major breakthrough.
On the first day, defending champion Matt Fitzpatrick begins his title defence in the afternoon, with reigning Open champion Cameron Smith and US Amateur champion Sam Bennett – who recently became professional – rounding out his group.
Justin Thomas, the two-time PGA champion, is in a three-ball with Shane Lowry and Tommy Fleetwood, who was defeated in an exciting play-off in Canada on Sunday, while Phil Mickelson begins his Grand Slam campaign alongside previous major winners Padraig Harrington and Keegan Bradley.
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