Stratford grad Russell Henley hopes to rebound in U.S. Open from subpar Memorial

By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

          Russell Henley is having a coin-flip type of season so far.

          Flip a coin to guess on how well he’ll play.

          Take this three-tournament stretch in the spring: tied for fourth, missed the cut, and tied for fourth, sandwiched by a tie for 41st and tied for 38th.

          With nearly a month in between events, he tied for 12th and then for 10th, then was tied for 23rd with a 10-under weekend followed three weeks later by a tie for 27th while shooting 5 over.

          Henley’s game was all over the place last week at the Memorial with that last finish, so it’s anybody’s guess how he’ll play in the U.S. Open starting Thursday at Pinehurst in North Carolina.

          He had momentum from that fourth-place finish at the Arnold Palmer Invitational heading into the PGA Championship, but missed the cut after a pair of 73s.

          Henley has averaged finishing 20th in his last five U.S. Opens, finishing 14th last year with a 2-under. That came after missing the cut in 2022 and tied-for-13th-place finish in 2021, at even.

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          Before that, he played in 2018, and shot a 12 over.

          Henley has only one trip to Pinehurst No. 2, way back in 2014, when his third-round 82 left him 17 over for the weekend and in 60th place.

          He has missed the cut in three Opens. Last year’s tournament was at Los Angeles Country Club, and he got better as the weekend continued, with a pair of 68s following a pair of 71s.

          CBS Sports.com has him in the top 24 (top 23 after Jon Rahm’s withdrawal), figuring his game fits Pinehurst fairly well.

          The 35-year-old tees off at 7:40 a.m. on No. 10, with Patrick Cantlay and Matt Kuchar. Henley is No. 20 in the FedExCup rankings, one spot ahead of Cantlay, while Kuchar is at No. 152. Henley is No. 17 in the Official World Golf Ranking, currently amid a stretch of his best career rankings on both lists.

Henley is 45th on the active PGA Tour career money list with winnings of $30, 240,615, just behind former Georgia teammate Harris English ($30,586,606) and ahead of former Bulldog Kevin Kisner ($29.188,836).

This year’s purse of $21.5 million is up 1.5 million from last year when Wyndham Clark took home $3.6 million with his first win in a major. This year’s winner will get $4.3 million.