Dallas Morning News golf writer Bill Nichols handicaps the field for this week's U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. Top 20 are listed in projected order of finish with U.S. Open starts, top-10s, last year's result and comment:
Player Starts Top-10s 2009 Comment
1. Heath Slocum 3 1 Cut Fits mold of recent Open champs
2. Jim Furyk15 5 T-33 Overdue for second major title
3. Dustin Johnson 2 0 T-40 Two straight wins at Pebble Beach
4. Ricky Barnes 5 1 T-2 Excels on tough layouts
5. Phil Mickelson 19 8 T-2 Knows how to win at Pebble Beach
6. Ernie Els 17 7 Cut Last Open at Pebble: T-2
7. Lee Westwood 10 3 T-23 Riding high after Memphis win
8. Matt Kuchar 7 0 Cut Adept at getting up and down
9. Tiger Woods 15 7 T-6 Returns to site of landmark win
10. Camilo Villegas 5 1 T-33 No Spiderman pose on cliff greens
11. Angel Cabrera 10 2 T-54 Overpowered Oakmont in 2007
12. Ian Poulter 6 0 T-18 Major player, excessive Twitterer
13. Rory McIlroy 1 1 T-10 Youngster well-versed in majors
14. Paul Casey 7 1 Cut Best finish T15 in last six majors
15. Hunter Mahan 4 1 T-6 Major record speaks for itself
16. Retief Goosen 12 2 T-16 First in total putting
17. Tim Clark 7 1 T-40 No longer best player without win
18. Bo Van Pelt 3 0 Cut Among best from tee to green
19. Y. E. Yang 1 0 DNP Last two majors: T8, Win
20. Ben Crane 4 0 Cut Four straight top-12s
IN THE HUNT
Robert Allenby
Stephen Ames
K. J. Choi
Stewart Cink
Ben Curtis
Rhys Davies
Brian Davis
Brendon de Jonge
Luke Donald
David Duval
Simon Dyson
Bob Estes
Ross Fisher
David Frost
Sergio Garcia
Brian Gay
Lucas Glover
Soren Hansen
Padraig Harrington
J. J. Henry
Miguel Angel Jimenez
Zach Johnson
Robert Karlsson
Jerry Kelly
Derek Lamely
Tom Lehman
Marc Leishman
Justin Leonard
Davis Love III
Steve Marino
Graeme McDowell
Rory McIlroy
Shaun Micheel
Edoardo Molinari
Francesco Molinari
Ryan Moore
Kevin Na
Geoff Ogilvy
Sean O'Hair
Louis Oosthuizen
Kenny Perry
Alvaro Quiros
John Rollins
Rory Sabbatini
Charl Schwartzel
Adam Scott
Michael Sim
Vijay Singh
Brandt Snedeker
Henrik Stenson
Steve Stricker
David Toms
Scott Verplank
Nick Watney
Tom Watson
Mike Weir
Watch out for
Stuart Appleby
Arjun Atwal
Aaron Baddeley
Rich Barcelo
Byeong-Hun An
Rafael Cabrera
Alex Cejka
Jason Dufner
Harrison Frazar
Fred Funk
Jason Gore
Paul Goydos
Mathias Gronberg
Peter Hanson
Gregory Havret
Yuta Ikeda
Mikko Ilonen
Trevor Immelman
Ryo Ishikawa
Thongchai Jaidee
Martin Kaymer
Simon Khan
Soren Kjeldsen
Jean-Francois Lucquin
John Mallinger
Pablo Martin
Ross McGowan
Rocco Mediate
Deane Pappas
John Senden
Chris Stroud
Toru Taniguchi
Charles Warren
Oliver Wilson
Gary Woodland
Kaname Yokoo
IN THE ROUGH
Eric Axley
Stephen Allan
Jason Allred
Craig Barlow
Matt Bettencourt
Bennett Blakeman
Gary Boyd
Joseph Bramlett
Michael Campbell
Erik Compton
Jon Curran
Rafa Echenique
Kent Eger
Hiroyuki Fujita
Bobby Gates
Travis Hampshire
Russell Henley
Jim Herman
Morgan Hoffmann
Kent Jones
Erick Justesen
Rikard Karlberg
Kenny Kim
Scott Langley
Hugo Leon
Alex Martin
Ben Martin
Gareth Maybin
Dan McCarthy
James Morrison
Blaine Peffley
Kevin Phelan
Terry Pilkadaris
Jason Preeo
Andrew Putnam
Matthew Richardson
Mark Silvers
Paul Sheehan
Yul Noh Seung
Jerry Smith
Daniel Summerhays
Hudson Swafford
Ty Tryon
Steve Wheatcroft
Azuma Yano
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