The hardest task at the US Open: figuring out how to beat

The world No 1 arrives at Pinehurst on a run of form rarely seen in golf. It has left his rivals shaking their heads with a mix of admiration and resignation

How do you solve a problem like Scottie Scheffler, the world’s top-ranked golfer who enters the 124th playing of the US Open on a head of steam not seen on the men’s tour for many years? To ask Rory McIlroy, the Louisville Metro Police Department were on the right track.

“The only thing that took him from winning a golf tournament was going into a jail cell for an hour,” the Northern Irishman said with a smile on Tuesday at the Pinehurst Resort in the sand hills of North Carolina, where the year’s third major gets under way in two days. “It seems like every time he shows up, he is the guy to beat, and deservedly so.”