Europe does not arrive at Shinnecock Hills hoping one player can drag the story across the line. For UK golf followers, that is the most compelling part of this U.S. Open.
Rory McIlroy is still the biggest name in the conversation, and rightly so. He is trying to add a second major of the season after retaining the Masters at Augusta, and his first-round grouping with Tommy Fleetwood and Ludvig Aberg gives the opening afternoon in Britain a ready-made focus. But this is no longer a week where European interest begins and ends with McIlroy’s mood, ball speed or patience.
That is what gives Thursday at Shinnecock a different edge. Europe has already taken the first two men’s majors of 2026, with McIlroy at Augusta and Aaron Rai at the PGA Championship. Sky Sports noted this week that it marks the first time in the modern era that Europeans have won the first two men’s majors of a calendar year. Now the U.S. Open offers a sterner question: can that form travel to the most exacting championship in American golf?
A Deeper European Cast
The strength of the European challenge is not just numerical. It has texture.
Matt Fitzpatrick, already a U.S. Open champion, arrives with three PGA Tour wins this season and a runner-up finish at last week’s RBC Canadian Open. That matters because Shinnecock should reward the sort of controlled, repetitive golf that has always been central to Fitzpatrick’s best weeks. His 2022 U.S. Open win at Brookline was built on nerve, strategy and precision rather than one overwhelming physical weapon. This test asks for many of the same traits.
ReadGolf has already covered how Fitzpatrick’s 2026 form changed the conversation around him after his RBC Heritage victory over Scottie Scheffler. At Shinnecock, that run of form becomes more than a nice early-season note. It becomes evidence.
Then there is Rai, whose PGA Championship win at Aronimink still feels like one of the season’s defining turns. The official U.S. Open player notes list him in the field as the reigning PGA champion, a player with nine worldwide wins and a career shaped on both sides of the Atlantic. He may not carry the noise of McIlroy, the profile of Jon Rahm or the history of Fitzpatrick, but UK readers know the value in a golfer who keeps removing reasons to doubt him.
Shinnecock Will Expose Any Weakness
The warning is obvious. Shinnecock Hills is not a venue that flatters reputation for long. It has hosted U.S. Opens across three centuries, and its recent championship history is full of players who felt they were only one poor decision away from losing the tournament completely.
That is why ReadGolf’s earlier look at Shinnecock giving the U.S. Open the test it needs is such useful context for this European question. The course is not simply a backdrop. It is the opponent.
McIlroy has spoken about patience. Fitzpatrick has the control profile. Fleetwood has the strongest course memory of any English contender. Rai has just proved he can close a major. Justin Rose, Shane Lowry, Tyrrell Hatton, Rahm and Aberg all add layers to a challenge that feels broader than usual.
For Britain and Ireland, the opening round is therefore more than a watch-along with one superstar. It is a proper test of whether Europe’s major season is a hot streak or the beginning of something more stubborn.
Shinnecock will have a vote. It always does.
