The US Open returns to the top-ranked Pinehurst No 2 for the first time since 2014. Mike Green

This year Pinehurst No 2 will host the US Open for the fourth time. It is the only course to have hosted all five of the USGA’s most prestigious events: US Open (1999, 2005, 2014), US Women’s Open (2014), US Amateur (1962, 2008, 2019), US Women’s Amateur (1989) and US Senior Open (1994).

Pinehurst consists of nine 18-hole golf courses, each named simply by a number, and a nine-hole short course. Pinehurst No 2 has consistently been ranked as one of the top courses in North Carolina and among the best in the US.

Former USGA CEO Mike Davis thinks back fondly to the two weeks in June 2014 at Pinehurst No 2, when Martin Kaymer and Michelle Wie won the US Open and the US Women’s Open back-to-back.

“We saw that we don’t have to have real narrow fairways; we don’t have to have to have long, rough grass to have successful US Opens,” he said. “I think we’ll look back on the 114th US Open and the 69th Women’s Open and say that in a lot of ways, it was a seminal moment in the game of golf and championship golf and sustainability of the game. These two weeks will rank right up there with the best ever.

“We have to celebrate how well Martin Kaymer played and how Michelle Wie won her first Major championship. It was a great story on water use and a great story of the restoration of one of the great golf courses in the country – in the world, for that matter. It’s going to be hard to give these two weeks enough accolades for what they’re going to mean to the game.”

Last year at Los Angeles Country Club, Wyndham Clark, who had never finished better than 75th at a Major and had missed the cut at his previous two US Opens, shot a final-round 70 to finish at 10 under par and hold off four-time Major champion Rory McIlroy by one shot for his first US Open and Major championship win.

Current world No 1 Scottie Scheffler was third at seven under. Amateur Aldrich Potgieter was the only South African to make the cut, finishing 64th at 15 over. Thriston Lawrence, Wilco Nienaber and Deon Germishuys missed the cut.

With Scheffler in the kind of form he is, it is difficult to look past him as a prohibitive favourite at this year’s US Open. However, the world rankings and form suggest McIlroy will also be in the mix. And the players who followed Scheffler home at The Masters, Ludvig Aberg of Sweden, Americans Max Homa and Collin Morikawa, and England’s Tommy Fleetwood, all look to be Major champion material.

Once again, South Africa will have a British Amateur champion in the field as Christo Lamprecht tees it up.

South Africans have won the US Open five times, with Gary Player winning once, and Ernie Els and Retief Goosen each winning twice.

The 1965 US Open was the 65th edition of the Major, held at Bellerive Country Club in Missouri. Player defeated Kel Nagle of Australia in an 18-hole playoff to win his only US Open. He was the first foreign-born winner of the US Open since 1927, and the win completed his career Grand Slam at age 29.

The 94th US Open in 1994 was held at Oakmont Country Club in Pennsylvania. Els, 24, won the first of his four Majors on the second sudden-death hole to defeat Loren Roberts, after Colin Montgomerie was eliminated in an 18-hole playoff.

In 1997 Els lifted the trophy again, the second of his four Majors, one stroke ahead of Montgomerie at the Blue Course of Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland. 

The 101st US Open was held in 2001 at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Goosen won the first of his two US Open titles in an 18-hole Monday playoff, two strokes ahead of runner-up Mark Brooks. The tournament was also notable for ending defending champion Tiger Woods' run of four consecutive Major championship wins, the ‘Tiger Slam’. He finished seven strokes back in a tie for 12th.

Goosen then won his second US Open at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in 2004 when he finished two strokes ahead of runner-up Phil Mickelson, the reigning Masters champion.