June 11, 2026
“It definitely is the major championship that not only tests your physical game, I think it's the biggest test of your patience and your fortitude and your mentality and accepting that not always the greatest things are going to happen.” – Jim Furyk on the U.S. Open
“His game is off...he's still the man to beat, but he is no longer the man that can't be beat.” – Brandel Chamblee on Scottie Scheffler
USA Network Presents 11-Hour Block of U.S. Open Coverage on Thurs., June 18, at 6 a.m. ET; Golf Central Live From The U.S. Open Will Present Nearly 60 Hours of Live and Encore Studio Coverage Next Week
STAMFORD, Conn. – June 11, 2026 – USA Sports’ lead U.S. Open analyst Jim Furyk and Golf Channel’s primetime Live From the U.S. Open broadcast team - analysts Brandel Chamblee and Paul McGinley and host Rich Lerner - previewed the upcoming 126th U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton, N.Y. on a media conference call earlier this week. Below are highlights from the call.
Earlier this week, USA Sports announced that Furyk will open USA Network’s 11-hour block of U.S. Open coverage on Thursday, June 18, which begins at 6 a.m. ET, and will contribute to USA Network’s Thursday afternoon and weekend U.S. Open telecasts.
Golf Central Live From The U.S. Open will surround the 126th U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills with live studio coverage on Golf Channel next week, beginning Monday, June 15 through Sunday, June 21. In total, Golf Channel will present nearly 60 hours of live and encore studio coverage
Click here for the full transcript.
Rich Lerner on Shinnecock Hills: “The U.S. Open at Shinnecock may not be the only expression of golf in America, but I think it's probably the ultimate expression of golf in this country. Its place in history, origins of the game in the United States, as close to Scotland as you can get. I would say it's the quality of the land, obviously, where it sits, its proximity to wealth and power, and its commitment to upholding the traditions of the game.”
Paul McGinley on Shinnecock: “If you look at all the winners around there, they've got two things in common. They've got great short games…but also, they've got a gnarly attitude and I think that's the point they'll finish on as U.S. Open champions, particularly around a test as difficult as Shinnecock…I think that's what's going to be the test more than anything else – to win without your A game, to win hitting perfect shots and not getting the right result.”
Jim Furyk on the U.S. Open: “I'm a little biased because I won the U.S. Open, but it definitely is the major championship that not only tests your physical game, I think it's the biggest test of your patience and your fortitude and your mentality and accepting that not always the greatest things are going to happen. I never like to use the word fair but, you see folks get frustrated, you see them get upset, and you see them cost themselves strokes in the U.S. Open. There were years, and I say that plural, there were many years where I let that happen to me, all the while knowing that you couldn't win the tournament if that happened. So, it's a great test, both physically and mentally and I look forward to being there and getting to talk about it.”
Brandel Chamblee on U.S. Open scoring: “I think everybody resets for U.S. Opens. You know, it's not really about the score, it's about playing the best golf you can play with the conditions that you've been given under the circumstances that you're playing in…Most weeks it's about how fast you can run. At a U.S. Open, it's just about dealing with adversity, because you're going to face it from the 1st hole to the 18th hole. You know, your ball's going to land in the fairway, and, under ideal conditions, the fairways are going to be firmer than they are week-in and week-out. The greens are going to be firmer than they are week-in and week-out.”
Furyk on U.S. Open venues: “When they pick a new venue, it doesn't make the U.S. Open or the PGA Championship any less valuable, or a major championship any less valuable, but picking out the Oakmonts and the Shinnecocks and the Winged Foots, it has a special feeling because there is a history. You can talk about the past champions there. I think for the four of us on the panel here, it's also special for us to go and talk about that.”
Furyk on if Shinnecock Hills was the hardest golf course he’s ever seen at the 2004 U.S. Open: “One of them, absolutely…But I remember distinctly standing over putts, 20, 25 feet uphill, and still kind of lag mentality. I mean, it was so easy to fire one four and five feet by the hole, and I just remember there was no place where I felt like you could be aggressive…I couldn't really fathom the golf (Retief Goosen and Phil Mickelson) played, and some of the best golf, surely if I'm talking about some of the best rounds that I've seen throughout my career, I would probably have to include the golf they played that year.”
Chamblee on Scottie Scheffler and majors: “Scottie Scheffler will come into the U.S. Open with a great chance, I would say, to complete the career Grand Slam but his game is off so he's provided opportunity to the other best players in the world. He's still the man to beat, but he is no longer the man that can't be beat. So, there's a great opportunity there for Rory McIlroy. There's a great opportunity there for Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm. Look, the major championships have always been the ultimate test and the biggest news and the most pressure, but as long as there's this division between the PGA TOUR and LIV Golf, the major championships, I think, are even bigger because it brings all those players together and all those storylines.”
McGinley on Rory McIlroy: “What he has proved over the last few years is he's proved himself better – much, much better than he's ever been in his career – at playing difficult golf courses. He used to not have the patience to be able to do that. I think he's a lot more of a patient player now and we're seeing the consistency at the top-end of major championships in contention, in the conversation, more than he has been in the past. He's not kind of racing into backdoor top 10s anymore. He's kind of in the conversation into the last round, maybe a little bit off the pace, maybe on the pace. So he's certainly a factor (at Shinnecock), and the wider fairways may well play into his psyche, give him a little bit more room, and take a bit of the pressure off in terms of straightness with his driver.”
Lerner on Bryson DeChambeau: “Bryson's not a kid anymore. I mean, not old. He’s 32. These are prime years, and I think he has to make a determination exactly what does he want. I think it's okay to want to be a YouTube giant, to, as he likes to say, to grow the game. But majors in this sport are how legacies are written, and I don't think he can afford to let too many more slip away. We’re halfway through what could be a lost season here for Bryson, so he needs to figure it out. What does he want to be? What does he want to do?”
Chamblee on DeChambeau: “He's the one exception...every single other player that has gone to LIV their game has fallen off, and that's even true with Jon Rahm…Trading your prime years for money, to me, is a huge mistake. With Bryson, it's the opposite. It didn't seem to knock him out of his game, he didn't seem to lose any of his competitive edge. You might even argue that he got better with all the time that he could practice, because he's sort of unique in that regard, but I think we've always sort of looked at this experiment of his, even though it's ongoing, with the longer clubs as questionable around the greens. And that's what it's looked like this year. He's just been absolutely atrocious around the greens. Still drives it great...Maybe that is the larger point of what's going on with Bryson this year, is that he's completely in a state of flux. He'd put so much into LIV, and now it's up in flames. There’s a lot of doubt as to where he's going to be next year. So maybe that is the larger part of it, and it's just playing out with his short game, and his iron play is just completely off.”
- USA SPORTS -
