The US Open Golf Championship is the next PGA Tour major and the tournament starts on Thursday at Pinehurst in North Carolina and has first and second round coverage from NBC, ESPN and the WatchESPN website as Phil Mickelson, Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose and Adam Scott try to rise on the leaderboard and go for the major tourney win and it comes after Lefty and other players were at the FedEx St. Jude Classic last weekend.
Mickelson is coming into the tournament looking for his first career US Open and he has finished in second numerous times and is finally hoping to break through. Rory McIlroy comes in playing well since his breakup and one of the major players to watch at the tournament is youngster Jordan Spieth, as he nearly won the Masters at Augusta earlier this year and now has the chance to get his first major championship at Pinehurst with a nice performance.
Mickelson is competing in the tournament for nearly the 25th time and he will be paired with Justin Rose, who is coming in as the defending champion. Mickelson has not been at his best when paired with Rose at the start of majors over the past two times, as he shot over 70 on those, but Lefty said that his game is coming in strong and that he will be confident at the tournament when the first round begins on Thursday. McIlroy comes in after starting off well at the Memorial with a score under 65, but he followed that up with nearly and 80 and this comes a few weeks won after his high profile breakup with Carolina Wozniacki.
McIlroy has won two major championships and the 25 year old met and spoke with Jack Nicklaus ahead of the tournament and some of those tips may help him as he tries to tackle this major. Tiger Woods will not be in the US Open field after having back surgery and he has missed a bunch of tournaments this year and did not play well before he was hurt and now he hopes to return for one of the other two majors on the schedule. McIlroy has not played Pinehurst before and he saw the course for the first time last week and said that it would be a challenge.
McIlroy is playing better than he was at this time last year and he won at the BMW PGA Championship for his first Euro Tour win in a while and he is now sixth in the world and Adam Scott is number one after taking it from Woods. McIlroy comes in with 10 top 10 finishes across all tournaments and he is hoping that continues into the weekend here.
Check here for the US Open leaderboard and live stream coverage from Pinehurst.
