Monkey Knife Fight Picks: Eagle Eye PGA DFS Picks for the U.S. Open

PGA Preview and DFS Picks

The 2021 U.S. Open tees off at Torrey Pines South Course this week and Monkey Knife Fight’s Eagle Eye contest is a fun way to play along with the action on the course.

The Eagle Eye contest allows you to pick three golfers for your team and if all three make an eagle in the tournament, you get a share of this week’s $5,000 prize pool, which has rolled over after there were no winners in last week’s contest at The Palmetto Championship.

It is not going to be easy to find three players to eagle at a course that is going to play to U.S. Open standards. This is going to be more difficult than the Farmers Insurance Open, the tour event that regularly plays at Torrey Pines South.

For example, there were 17 eagles at the 2020 U.S. Open and Bryson DeChambeau was the only player with two. That is still not a lot of eagles.

In 2008, the last time the U.S. Open was held at Torrey Pines South Course, Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate tied at 1-under-par through 72 holes before Tiger won in a playoff. There were 16 eagles that week, three of them by Eldrick Woods.

If it’s going to be that difficult to get under par, it will make eagles really valuable but also, likely, quite rare.

Here are some Monkey Knife Fight picks to keep in mind when making your Eagle Eye selections for the U.S. Open.

You can find my Full Tournament and 1st Round picks here).

⛳ EAGLE EYE – THE U.S. OPEN

Bryson DeChambeau

The only player with multiple eagles at the 2020 U.S. Open, DeChambeau has the lowest eagle rate on tour this season, with one per 69.2 holes. He also eagled during the 2019 U.S. Open.

Brooks Koepka

Although Koepka, like DeChambeau, has not had a lot of success at Torrey Pines, he is almost always a contender at the U.S. Open, with wins in 2017 and 2018 and a second-place finish in 2019. If he manages to hang in contention, maybe that gives him an opportunity to get an eagle. Koepka currently ranks 16^th on tour in eagles with one per 102.9 holes and he eagled twice at the 2016 U.S. Open.

Jon Rahm

The real argument for Rahm is that he has been the most consistently low-scoring golfer on the tour and has played well in previous events at the Torrey Pines South Course, with four Top 10 finishes in five Farmers Insurance Open tournaments. His eagle rate, of one per 114.0 holes, ranks 25^th on tour this season. Rahm had three eagles at the 2017 Farmers Insurance Open and two more at the 2019 and 2020 tournaments.

Some others to consider:

Sergio Garcia

• 2^nd best eagle rate with one per 72.6 holes
• Hard to trust; had missed four straight cuts before tying for 20^th at Charles Schwab Invitational.
• Eagled at the 2019 and 2017 U.S. Opens.

Justin Thomas

• Ranks fifth in eagle rate (one per 90.0 holes)
• Had more success early in the season but has made the cut in seven of his past eight events.
• Eagled at the 2017 U.S. Open.

Xander Schauffele

• Has played in four U.S. Opens, finishing fifth, sixth, third, and fifth.
• Tied for ninth in eagle rate, with one per 93.6 holes.
• Has eagled in the past two U.S. Opens.

Will Zalatoris

• 24-year-old has made the cut in 15 of his past 16 events
• Tied for seventh in eagle rate, with one per 92.6 holes.
• Eagled at the 2020 U.S. Open and eagled twice at the 2020 Farmers Insurance Open.
  
  

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