Here are 10 statistical nuggets from Sunday’s final round of the 120th U.S. Open on the West Course at Winged Foot Golf Club:
1. Bryson DeChambeau shot a final-round 67 to win the U.S. Open at Winged Foot by six strokes. DeChambeau gained 7.90 strokes on the field on Sunday, the best final-round total by a U.S. Open champion since Johnny Miller in 1973, when he gained 10.77 with his legendary closing 63 at Oakmont.
2. DeChambeau joined some incredible company with the victory: he is just the third player to win the U.S. Open, U.S. Amateur and NCAA Division I individual championship. The other two to do it are Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods. DeChambeau is the 12th player all time to win the U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur.
3. DeChambeau was the only player under par in the final round, becoming the first U.S. Open champion with that distinction since Jack Fleck in 1955. DeChambeau was also the only player under par for the championship, becoming the first to do that in a U.S. Open since Tiger Woods in 2002.
4. DeChambeau is the first U.S. Open champion to make an eagle in the final round in more than 80 years. The last player to do it, Ralph Guldahl in 1937, made eagle on the eighth hole at Oakland Hills en route to a 2-shot win over Sam Snead. Bryson made two eagles on the week, joining Woods in 2008 as the only U.S. Open champions in the last 40 years to make more than one.
5. DeChambeau’s performance off the tee was historically unprecedented in more ways than one. Bryson hit only 22 fairways for the week, the fewest by a U.S. Open champion since statistics started being tracked 40 years ago. He also averaged 325.6 yards off the tee for the week, the highest distance ever measured by a U.S. Open winner. DeChambeau ranked third in the field for the week in strokes gained off-the-tee.
6. From the time the PGA Tour season resumed at Colonial through last week, DeChambeau ranked 120th in strokes-gained approach among players with 20 or more rounds played. That dramatically changed this week at Winged Foot – Bryson gained almost seven strokes on the field with his approach play, third-most of anyone in the field.
7. In his bid to become the youngest major champion since Woods in the 1997 Masters, Matthew Wolff finished in second place. At 21 years, 5 months, 6 days old, Wolff is the youngest runner-up in the U.S. Open since Jack Nicklaus in 1960 (age 20). With a win, Wolff would have been the first player to win in his U.S. Open debut since Francis Ouimet, 107 years ago to the day.
8. Xander Schauffele finished alone in fifth, 10 shots behind DeChambeau. Schauffele has now finished in the top 10 in all four of his career starts in the U.S. Open. Xander is now the first player to begin his U.S. Open career with four consecutive top-10 finishes since Bob Jones did it in his first seven from 1920-1926.
9. Louis Oosthuizen finished in third place, his sixth career top-three finish in a major championship. Since 2010, only four players have had more such finishes in the majors: Phil Mickelson (eight), Jordan Spieth (eight), Dustin Johnson (seven) and Rory McIlroy (seven).
10. The field hit the fairway less than 39.6 percent of the time at Winged Foot for the week, the lowest percentage for any U.S. Open since data started being tracked more than 30 years ago. Not only that – there has not been a PGA Tour event where a course yielded a fairways-hit percentage that low over 72 holes in the 30 years that stat has been recorded.
Justin Ray is the head of content for 15th Club. He has also worked as a senior researcher at ESPN and Golf Channel.