The U.S. Open is bracing for the same weather issues that plagued the Masters and PGA Championship earlier this year, with concerns on the horizon as play approaches next week at Oakmont.

Rory McIlroy triumphantly conquered his major drought at Augusta earlier this year, snagging the Masters and completing his collection for golf's career Grand Slam. Scottie Scheffler followed suit a month later with a win at the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow, marking his third major to complement his 2022 and 2024 Masters victories.

Yet unfavorable weather took its toll on both the Masters and the PGA Championship, causing mud balls—a golfer’s bane. At Augusta, an irked Jordan Spieth lambasted the conditions post his third round, according to the Guardian, decrying the mud balls which negatively affect a ball's flight and spin due to dirt picked up in bad weather.

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"My iron play killed me the last two days and to be brutally honest with you, it was primarily mud balls," Spieth said. "It's just so frustrating because you can't talk about them here. You're not supposed to talk about them.

"Mud balls can affect this tournament significantly, especially when you get them a lot on 11 and 13. They're just daggers on those two holes."

At the PGA Championship, rain once again disrupted play. Although the forecast for next week's U.S. Open seems promising, poor weather this weekend and potential early-week showers in Oakmont, Pennsylvania could bring the issue of mud balls back into focus.

The 'preferred lies' rule allows golfers to lift, clean, and place their ball within a certain distance from its original position on well-mown areas. However, this option was not available to players during the event due to a decision by the PGA of America, and it won't be available at the U.S. Open either.

Last month's major winner, Scheffler, like Spieth, expressed frustration with the rules. "I mean, I don't make the rules," Scheffler stated.

"I think when you're looking at the most authentic forms of golf, like when you're going to play links golf, there's no reason at all to play the ball on a link golf course. It doesn't matter how much rain falls. The course could be flooded with water, and somehow the ball is still going to bounce because of the way the turf is and the ground underneath.

"In American golf it's significantly different. When you have overseeded fairways that are not sand capped, there's going to be a lot of mud on the ball, and that's just part of it. When you think about the purest test of golf, I don't personally think that hitting the ball in the middle of the fairway you should get punished for.

"On a golf course as good of conditioned as this one is, this is probably a situation in which it would be the least likely difference in playing it up because most of the lies you get out here are all really good. So I understand how a golf purist would be, oh, play it as it lies.

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"All of us. I'm not the only guy," Xander Schauffele remarked at the PGA Championship when discussing the challenges with mud balls.

"I'm just in front of the camera. I wouldn't want to go in the locker room because I'm sure a lot of guys aren't super happy with sort of the conditions there.

"I feel like the grass is so good, there is no real advantage to cleaning your ball in the fairway. The course is completely tipped out. It sucks that you're kind of 50/50 once you hit the fairway.

"It's just wherever it ends up on the ball. I got lucky three or four holes in a row where it ended up sort of on the top of my ball and then you're kind of guessing how much spin it's going to take off."