We know - and YOU know - that if you do golf betting at BetOnline, you may, on any given occasion, be more concerned about who is going to win between two players than who is going to win a tournament. It all depends on where you're placing your money.

Toward that end, we're taking a look at four of the matchups involving players who are high on the US Open leaderboard. They'll be teeing off late and you can follow the action on NBC and/or Peacock. You can also do live betting, which you can find in the sportsbook interface.

Let's go.....

Tom Kim -130
Harris English +109

We're not going to sit here and tell you that Tom Kim's performance on Saturday was a fluke. He led the field with a 66 on a course that suddenly got a lot tougher. And he is, after all, the #22 player in the Official World Golf Ranking.

But with some of the moves the USGA has been making to create more difficult playing conditions, those conditions are not going to be so conducive to great scoring. Can Kim come close to duplicating his Saturday turn, or did he shoot his wad?

We were watching Harris English's round on Saturday. He was looking like he was ready to move up solidly into the top three. But he had some mishaps, including a shot in the rough around the green at 18 in which he completely missed the ball. He probably should be sitting right up there with Fowler, Clark and McIlroy right now. And he is okay with being in this spotlight; he was fourth in the US Open in 2020 and third in 2021.

So for us, he's a viable underdog.

Xander Shauffele -135
Dustin Johnson +113

One of the things we have to admire about Xander Schauffele is that he was able to show some resilience on Saturday after meeting with near disaster early in the round. He worked hard to get back there, taking it one shot at a time. He did tail off at the end, but didn't topple out of contention.

If not for the fact that Dustin Johnson hung an eight on the second hole on Friday, one could only imagine where he would be on the leaderboard. A par may have had him even with Rory McIlroy, who is just one shot off the pace. Johnson had shown some momentum coming in; he had won the LIV event in Tulsa, and then shot 64 in Thursday's opening round. And there's a pretty good chance he'll be able to cash in as the top LIV finisher (+600 at BetOnline).

Schauffele has played in 24 majors, and he has finished in the top ten on ten occasions. He is 6th in the world in the OWGR at the moment. Johnson won the US Open in 2016, captured the Masters three years ago, has been the runner-up in this event three times and has 22 top ten finishes in majors. So we don't expect he's going to melt. We prefer Johnson at the underdog price.

Scottie Scheffler -140
Rory McIlroy +117

We know that with regard to performances in major championships, McIlroy, with four major titles under his belt, has Scheffler beat. But it's been a while since he last tasted victory in one of them, and Scheffler is very much a man of the moment. He is ranked #1 in the world. And he is #1 in Greens in Regulation, which is never a bad thing to have going for you in this event, on what has been referred to as a "second shot course" by a lot of these pundits. Note that McIlroy is ranked 145th in that statistical category.

And the general feeling is that Scheffler brings some momentum from yesterday's stretch run, where he turned a rather ho-hum round into a surge with an eagle on 17 and a birdie on 18. So he's in contention.

We have confidence in what Scheffler can accomplish, but we're not all that crazy about the price.

Rickie Fowler -125
Wyndham Clark +105

Both of these players have relied on some "mentoring" to try and get over the hump. Fowler made a desperate call to his one-time swing coach, the legendary Butch Harmon (of Tiger Woods fame), who he had left for another guy. Clark leaned a little more on sports psychology to help get himself to another level. The former Oklahoma State and Oregon star has won a single tournament, the Wells Fargo Championship, and we could call him a rising star, except for the fact that he had over a hundred starts before that happened.

But perhaps he came into the proceedings this week in a better place than Fowler; certainly in the OWGR, where he is 32nd in the world, thirteen spots higher. Fowler last played in the US Open three years ago. But you know, at his best he was good enough to score a top five finish in all four majors in the same year. And he has been a birdie machine, at least over the first two rounds.

Both guys missed some putts by an inch or two, so they could have posted better numbers. On a heads-up basis, however, we'd cast a vote for the guy with more experience in these situations, who is feeling very good about his game right now. That's Fowler.

You can wager on all the head-to-head matchups at BetOnline, where they present a number of different options to you. And you can engage in live betting on a hole-by-hole basis. Remember that to open an account, you can use your credit card or any of the virtual plethora of options they make available to you! So c'mon - get on the tee and grip it and rip it!