PITTSBURGH — The golfer who emerges victorious Sunday at the U.S. Open here at Oakmont Country Club is probably the one who minimizes bogeys, and that generally means the golfer who hits the most fairways.

It is a simple formula that some would say plays in every golf tournament, but after two days of listening to the best guys in the world talk about Oakmont, I am starting to think that someone who manages to play bogey golf (i.e., 18-over) four days in a row might have a chance.

OK, that is a bit of an exaggeration, but it is clear that the challenge at Oakmont is very different from the challenges elsewhere. Some golf courses are for shot makers, some are for big hitters, and some are for players who are excellent with their irons around the green.

Oakmont is all of that and then some.

That’s mostly because of the diabolical combination of bush-thick rough, sand traps and bunkers so deep you need an ATV to get out of them — and, of course, silly pin placements on lightning-quick greens.

It is the ultimate test, and the players getting ready to tee off Thursday in pursuit of the championship all seem to know it based on their comments of the last three days.

That brings me to who might be a good pick as the champion based on what they do well and how their game matches up with Oakmont.

I could make it easy and say Bryson DeChambeau, Scottie Scheffler or Rory McIlroy but what fun would that be? Those are the three favorites, perhaps the three best players in the field, so there isn’t a whole lot of intrigue as to why one of them might win.

But let’s remove those three from the equation and find someone who seems poised and ready to win the thing. That player needs to be mature enough to keep his emotions in check, accurate and long with his driver and probably have some experience closing out majors.

That’s why my pick is Collin Morikawa. I think he has the game that matches up well versus Oakmont. You notice how I said it is Morikawa versus Oakmont and not Morikawa versus the rest of the field? That is how it has to be viewed, as it is very difficult to win the U.S. Open if your mindset isn’t to go out and beat the course and not worry about what everyone else is doing.

“I feel like I have the game to win out here. You just have to put it together,” Morikawa said. “On a course like this, step number one is to hit it in the fairways, and hopefully, we can do that.”

That part about hitting fairways is one reason I really like Morikawa — who has won two major championships in his short career — as he is one of the best in the business at hitting fairways. Morikawa is currently ranked second on the PGA Tour in driving accuracy as he hits fairways 73% of the time. He isn’t a big hitter, but he drives it 293 yards on average, and that is more than enough to make whatever the second shot is on a given hole very manageable.

Morikawa has not been consistent enough with his approach shots as he is not in the top 50 in greens in regulation, but once he gets on the greens, he is one of the best at finishing the holes. He ranks tied for fourth in putts (per hole on average) at 1.698, just ahead of Scheffler and McIlroy.

That sounds like a formula for someone likely to stay out of trouble at Oakmont and keep the ball ahead of him.

Morikawa also spoke to the media this week about his demeanor and how he keeps focused after bad shots because the next shot is the most important one of the round. He tries to keep his mind after every bad shot and focus on making a good shot — not necessarily a hero shot — on his next one.

But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know the grind coming to all the players over the next four days, and it doesn’t mean he isn’t ready for the adversity that Oakmont will cause, given all of the ways the course is designed to be incredibly tough.

“Man, it's just tough. I think you keep hearing the word tough and rough, a lot of rhyming words, but overall, you have to hit the ball really well,” Morikawa said. “You know you're going to get penalized even on good shots, and that's just part of this golf course.”

Morikawa was one of the more vocal critics of the par-3, 8th hole, as he said it is too long to be a par-3 (it will play between 290-302 yards this week) and that par-3s should be 150-160 yards max and be a test of players ability to hit precision iron shots. He was asked again his thought on No. 8, and he didn’t seem to back away from his original comments even a little bit.

“I will probably hit driver or 3-wood and hopefully hit the green,” Morikawa said. “If not, make up-and-down. Honestly, there's not a ton of strategy other than hitting your driver within 15 yards or your 3-wood within 15 yards. Just hit and hope, honestly. It's a hole. I'll take four pars right now and walk away.”

Morikawa was — and probably still is — considered a rising star even though he is now 28 years old. He burst on the scene but has cooled off as of late in terms of winning PGA Tour events. And this is the toughest test of the season so far, so maybe it is irrational to think he will find a way to win it — but I don’t think so.

His game will play at Oakmont, and if he tightens up his iron play just a bit, he will be in a great position to win it Sunday afternoon.

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