NEW YORK, June 15 (Reuters) \u2013 Five storylines to follow as the world\u2019s best players descend on Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton, New York, this week for the June 18-21 U.S. Open:<\/p>\n
SCHEFFLER\u2019S GRAND SLAM BID<\/p>\n
World number one Scottie Scheffler, a \u200btwo-times Masters winner who won last year\u2019s PGA Championship and British Open, will \u200cget his first crack at completing the coveted career Grand Slam of golf\u2019s four majors.<\/p>\n
A win for Scheffler would make him only the seventh man to win all four of golf\u2019s blue-riband events, joining Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Ben Hogan and Gene Sarazen.<\/p>\n
Scheffler has seven top-10 finishes in 12 starts \u200con the \u200bPGA Tour this year, including a win at La Quinta \u2060in January to open his \u2060season and a trio of runner-up finishes at the Masters, Cadillac Championship and RBC Heritage.<\/p>\n
EUROPEAN DOMINANCE<\/p>\n
When Englishman Aaron Rai won the 2026 PGA Championship a month after Northern Ireland\u2019s Rory McIlroy retained his Masters title in April, it marked the first time in the \u200bera of the four current major championships that the season\u2019s first two majors had been won by Europeans.<\/p>\n
The pair will lead the European charge in New York, where McIlroy\u2019s winning \u2060Ryder Cup teammates Justin Rose and Matt Fitzpatrick will \u2060hope to keep the momentum after each notching up wins this \u200bseason.<\/p>\n
SCOTT SET TO JOIN NICKLAUS IN RARE 100 CLUB<\/p>\n
When Australian Adam Scott tees off in the \u200bopening round on Thursday he will join golfing great Jack Nicklaus as the \u200conly men to play in 100 consecutive majors.<\/p>\n
Scott\u2019s remarkable streak, which includes a triumph at the 2013 Masters, began at the 2001 British Open. Nicklaus played in 146 consecutive majors from the 1962 Masters to the 1998 U.S. Open.<\/p>\n
KOEPKA IN DOUBT<\/p>\n
Brooks Koepka was poised to have a huge \u2060advantage at the famously tricky New York course this week, having won his second U.S. Open title at Shinnecock in 2018. But his withdrawal from the final round of the RBC Canadian \u2060Open on Sunday with a \u200cmysterious hand injury has put his participation in doubt.<\/p>\n
\u201c(I) got to \u2060the range and went to grip the club and I just \u200bcouldn\u2019t even \u200cgrip it,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n
HAMPTONS SUMMER<\/p>\n
The U.S. Open arrives in the \u200bHamptons, the \u2060chic beach playground of celebrities and Manhattan\u2019s ultra-wealthy, where city-dwellers fleeing the sweltering summer streets create famously snarling traffic across Long Island.<\/p>\n
A temporary Long Island Rail Road platform has been constructed adjacent to the tournament grounds as organisers pleaded with ticketholders to use public transport and prices for home rentals sky-rocketed in the area.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Frank Pingue in Toronto and Amy Tennery in New York; \u200bediting by Clare Fallon)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK, June 15 (Reuters) \u2013 Five storylines to follow as the world\u2019s best players descend on Shinnecock…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":738114,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-738113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=738113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/738114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=738113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=738113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=738113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}