Rozner: Here's a bomber who could win U.S. Open

Picking the winner of a major golf tournament is like trying to select the winner of the Kentucky Derby.

Only more difficult.

With at least 40 or 50 truly elite players possessing the resume and form to make a run, you could more easily find a needle in a stack of needles.

Nevertheless, nearby Erin Hills offers some clues.

It's expected to play at about 7,740 yards, making it the longest U.S. Open track in history, and could be stretched a few hundred yards more if the USGA gets itchy about low scores.

While an Open course always requires shot-making, this unquestionably favors the bombers.

The fairways are wider than usual for an Open, and if there's any rain at all that's even more of an advantage for the long hitters. It prevents running through the fairway and into the fescue, and it makes the course longer for the shorter players.

It has a links feel to it, but the USGA refuses the notion, insisting it's somewhere between a traditional course and a links property. But if you've played it, you would probably call it a links course even though you can't bounce it up to most of the greens.

Whatever.

The longest hitters of the golf ball will have a big advantage this week.

The U.S. Open doesn't always put the driver in players' hands, but this one absolutely does.

Expect the wind to blow, and that will put a premium on those who hit their approach shots high, or those conditioned to playing in the gusts.

Unless the USGA does something foolish with green speeds, and knowing they could bake the greens in this heat, it will turn into a second-shot golf course with hole-proximity crucial.

It's not going to be a classic or strategic U.S. Open.

It has the look of Chambers Bay with a hint of Wisconsin neighbor Whistling Straits.

And that has to make you consider Jason Day, who might have won at Chambers Bay in 2015 if not for vertigo, but did win his first major at Kohler two months later.

He was magnificent at that PGA Championship, crushing his driver and punishing the shorter hitters all week. Day is also a high-ball hitter, which will be necessary this week.

Since 2013, Day is 43-under in majors, by far the best of anyone in the game.

But Day has had an uneven year, dealing with a health crisis in the family and the usual assortment of injuries that he seems to carry with him from week to week.

If Rory McIlroy - another high-ball hitter with length - had been healthy and in form, he would also make a lot of sense coming in.

But the best player in the world this year has been rookie Jon Rahm, the Spaniard from Arizona State, who in 15 events has seven top 10s, six top threes, three seconds and a victory at the very difficult Torrey Pines after an eagle on the vaunted 18th green.

Low amateur at last year's U.S. Open, the 22-year-old Rahm is so talented that Tim Mickelson - Phil's brother - left his post as ASU coach last summer to become Rahm's agent, and veteran caddie Adam Hayes left Russell Henley to get on Rahm's bag at the end of last season.

Clearly, he can win and compete on courses he's never seen before, and the advantage this week is that most of the players have never seen Erin Hills, though bomber Brooks Koepka played it in the U.S. Am six years ago.

Rahm is top 10 on the PGA Tour in many important strokes-gained categories, including third off the tee, second tee-to-green, sixth in approach-the-green and third in total strokes-gained on the field.

The youngster is going to win majors and he has every right to win one this year. It's only a matter of time.

There are many sleepers to keep an eye on, like Koepka, Branden Grace, Kevin Kisner, the ridiculously-underrated Alex Noren and Belgian Thomas Pieters from the U of I.

But Jon Rahm will win a major in the next year or two.

Now seems as good a time as any.

brozner@dailyherald.com

• Listen to Barry Rozner from 9 a.m. to noon Sundays on the Score's "Hit and Run" show at WSCR 670-AM and follow him @BarryRozner on Twitter.