Boom or bust at US Open

The US Open golf tournament at Congressional is promising this year to be more thrilling.
Maybe they got sick of guys like Retief Goosen, Michael Campbell, Angel Cabrera, Geoff Ogilvy and Graeme McDowell winning their signature event. You know, all those foreigners with their grafting games honed on difficult courses. Guys who can play an array of shots and in all conditions in order to make a par. Did the USGA like that. Not really.
You get the feeling they'd rather see someone like Phil Mickelson, Bubba Watson, Rickie Fowler or Dustin Johnson grab the trophy. You know, big-driving, high-hitting excitement machines who live to make birdie.  
The USGA has spent years making the US Open tougher and tougher, only to find, that Tiger Woods (the ultimate grinder) and the dour Lucas Glover aside, those sorts of courses didn't really suit Americans weaned on a diet of target golf. 
So this year a change. The set-up has been tweaked. Par has been increased from 70 to 71. There's less rough, more risk-reward holes and less par-grinding grimness.
The USGA's Mike Davis says there will be more birdies, and a few eagles, but also some big ugly numbers, too. They want it to be like the back nine at Augusta during the Masters where this year Rory McIlroy was self-destructing with sixes and sevens while eventual Charl Schwartzel was skipping along with twos and threes.
There is potential for a glorious win or a gruesome demise. Unlike, say Winged Foot, where Geoff Ogilvy won after everyone else imploded. Ogilvy didn't dash to victory ... he simply arrived there.
So there will be room for the boom-bust merchants to crank out a low score, as long as they avoid big trouble. That said, the greens at Congressional are reported to be getting pretty fast already, so so Stewart Cink reported on Twitter.
So making those slippery six to 10 foot putts for par will still be crucial, as will lag putting. Predicting who will get hot with their putter is a tough one, especially when the heat increases during the final round.
I think it will come down to putting and with no crystal ball at hand I can only go on history and particularly the PGA Tour's extensive stats on putting. There a handful names keep popping up: Steve Stricker, Luke Donald, Zach Johnson, Brandt Snedeker and Ryan Moore.
I'm sticking with my original pick for this: Snedeker. he's in-form and when he's hot with the putter he's pretty impressive. For one at odds to continue the Open trend of throwing up an unlikely winner, how about Jason Dufner - with three top 10s in his past four starts, all at hard courses, he's playing as well as anyone right now.