SALT LAKE CITY — It looks like U.S. Open officials decided they wanted to have a long-drive contest of sorts by putting three of the longest drivers on the PGA Tour together for the first two days of the U.S. Open with a pairing that includes Utah’s Tony Finau.
Finau will tee off in Thursday’s first round at Winged Foot in New York with the No. 1 player in the world, Dustin Johnson, who has ranked among the top 10 drivers in the world for the past six years. Also in the threesome is Bryson DeChambeau, who skyrocketed to the top of the driving charts after the COVID-19 break to finish No. 1 in driving distance on the PGA Tour for 2019-20.
Those three golfers are teeing off at 11:16 a.m. MT and then at 5:56 a.m. MT on Friday.
Finau, who will be playing in his fifth U.S. Open, ranked in the top 10 in driving for each of his first five years on the PGA Tour with a best of No. 3 in 2016. This past year he has tried to bring a little more control to his driving and dropped to No. 13.
Johnson has ranked between No. 1 and No. 10 in PGA distance off the tee every year since 2015. DeChambeau became the No. 1 driver this past season after coming back from the three-month layoff with 20 extra pounds of muscle.
This will be Finau’s fifth U.S. Open appearance. His best finish was a fifth place in 2018 at Shinnecock Hills, New York. He also had a tie for 14th in 2015 in Washington and missed the cut in 2016 and last year.
The 30-year-old Finau finished 17th on the FedEx Cup points list last season when he had five Top 10 finishes, including a second-place finish in Phoenix.
Finau, who was born and raised in Salt Lake and now lives in Lehi, is one of two golfers with Utah ties in the tournament. Preston Summerhays, who lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, and spends his summers in Utah, is one of 13 amateurs in the field. The 18-year-old Summerhays is the youngest player in the tournament and qualified by winning the U.S. Junior Amateur in 2019. His father, Boyd Summerhays, is Finau’s coach.