Tuesday Tidbits - Oakmont On My Mind Edition

Sorry about that abrupt ending to yesterday's post, but real life has been intruding lately.  But shall we pay it off today?

Geoff has devoted his efforts to these four majors, so no surprise that he's on fire this week.  We'll lede with his characteristic Oakmont By The Numbers:

Oakmont Country Club By The Numbers

1904: Year that Oakmont opened for play




1: Original architect, Henry Fownes




1: Course ever designed by Henry Fownes






12: Architects/superintendents who have since made modifications (William Fownes Jr./Emil Loeffler, Arthur Jack Snyder, Robert Trent Jones, Arnold Palmer/Ed Seay, Ferdinand Garbin, Arthur Hills, Tom Marzolf, Bill Coore/Ben Crenshaw, Gil Hanse)




+13, +11, -5, -1, -5, -4, -5, +5, -4 : Winning scores (to par) in Oakmont’s nine previous U.S. Opens




72-72-72-71-71-71-71-70-70: Course par in nine previous U.S. Opens




7 of 9: U.S. Open winners at Oakmont also won their first major that week




70: Par in 2025




7,372: U.S. Open official yardage (7,219 in 2016)




78.4/150: Course rating and Slope




168: Bunkers




0: Water features




63: Course record (Johnny Miller, 1973)




2: Church Pew bunkers




1: Original Church Pew bunker (third hole…the 15th hole version was created by RTJ Sr. for the 1953 U.S. Open)






109: Length in yards of the third hole’s Church Pew bunker




13: Pews (up from 11 in 2016)




1: Bunker nicknamed “Big Mouth” (blind 17th green front bunker)






13: Professional majors hosted (9 U.S. Opens, 3 PGAs)




2033, 2042, 2049: Years of future U.S. Opens




684: Par 5 12th hole yardage in round one of 2016’s U.S. Open




300: Par 3 eighth hole yardage in round four of 2007’s U.S. Open




9’8”: 1977 Stimpmeter speed reading at Oakmont




3: Greens sloping away from the landing area (1, 10, 12)




3: Oakmont Country Clubs in the USA (Glendale, CA and Corinth, Texas)

So, Johnny Miller shot 63 at Oakmont?  Does anyone remember him mentioning it?  The other uncharitable reaction is to note that one of Trent Jones' most famous architectural features is a direct copy of something created by a guy that designed exactly one golf course.... Sounds about right, no?

Geoff helpfully provides this on changes since w elast visited:




What’s Changed Since 2016?




After hosting the 2021 U.S. Amateur the club enlisted Gil Hanse to create a master plan. It resulted in a 2023 renovation.




Instead of a pure restoration based on a high point architecturally, Hanse focused on each hole’s peak from 1903-1947 when at least one of the Fownes’ was above ground and in control of the course.




The project included:




24,000 sq. ft. of green expansions (without rebuilding), including 2,300 sq. ft on the third green




330,000 sq.ft. of bunker renovations, including expansion of the infamous Church Pew bunker at No. 3




Two acres of fairway expansion




250 yards of additional tees




Select modifications to discourage players from playing down neighboring fairways




Reduction of bunker face swelling around greens that reduced visibility and hole location possibilities




Realignment of fairway contours to better snake through bunker complexes instead of sticking to a formulaic width 




Repositioning of select bunkers which had been added incongruously or were placed with little strategic purpose




He also includes before and after photos of two specific changes, first to the tee shot on No. 7:

The re-worked 7th tee shot is a textbook example of installing more options. The added temptation to take on a bolder tee line while offering a safer play should not sacrifice difficulty:

And a far more interesting look, with far more trouble for the player to be aware of.

And this significant expansion of one green:

Most notably, the 13th has gone from having just two available locations somewhere on the left side, to a whopping six:

Not like they keep these greens firm and fast, is it?

Sorry for the tease, but it's not likely we'll get F&F this week, though the long-term forecast for the 2049 Open looks promising:

Before the players even arrive at Oakmont, the area will have already seen a lot of moisture. Flash flood warnings were out for parts of western Pennsylvania on Sunday, including several counties in the Pittsburgh metro. It remains to be seen how that impacts the difficulty of the golf course — if at all — but anyone attending the U.S. Open should definitely wear shoes that can handle some mud.

Friday is where it could start to get a little shaky. There's a small chance of rain showers during the day and it increases as the day goes on, increasing to 40 percent later in the evening. Highs are projected to be in the low 80s with light winds.

Saturday looks like the worst day of the week. Forecasters are calling for a 60 percent chance of rain, with showers in the morning followed by thunderstorms in the afternoon. Still, the temps will be comfortable (mid-70s) and the wind won't play too much of a factor at 5-10 mph out of the south.

Sunday also has rain in the forecast after thunderstorms throughout the night Saturday. Fans and players might not see the sun during the final round, either. Cloudy with a 50 percent chance of showers and light winds from the southeast.

June is about as bad as it gets in the Northeast, so naturally that's when they hold Opens.

But perhaps the most fun from Geoff was his two-part deep dive on Oakmont's favorite F-word:

While Oakmont’s former practice of “furrowing” bunkers has been retired for over sixty years, I thought it’d be fun to revisit the arguments, complaints, debates, and changes of heart at the center of Oakmont’s first four U.S. Opens. Some of the banter even fueled 1920s brouhahas between advocates of the strategic and penal schools of architecture. We will probably hear similar but less articulate refrains next week. Either way, it’s always enjoyable to be reminded of the first-world problems faced by professionals whenever majors turn up at Oakmont.

Nasty stuff, but he has some fun with Mr. Jones on this subject:

1927: Jones Was For Furrowing Until He Wasn’t

Two years after hosting the U.S. Amateur, a field headlined by defending champion Bobby Jones, Gene Sarazen, and Walter Hagen faced a renovated course for the club’s initial U.S. Open. One key setup element of Oakmont would remain in place as long as Henry Fownes was around: furrowing the bunker sand.

The practice of plowing the sand with deep-tined rakes became Oakmont’s thing early on. As strategic as the course was even in its early iterations, the Fownes’ philosophy dictated that a “shot poorly played should be a shot irrevocably lost.”

Jones declared Oakmont “the best course on which either championship has been played within my limited experience in national competition.” (Humility note: he was already a two-time U.S. Open champion at this point and had been playing all over the land for a decade).

Jones curiously went out of his way to defend the club’s sand furrowing and even offered a little instructional advice on how to deal with them.

“They have been uniformly cursed by the players and glorified by the press, and I think the press is right,” he wrote on championship eve. “It has always appeared to me that going into a bunker should incur a penalty of at least one stroke unless the recovery be particularly brilliant.”

You'll know that a change of heart is on the way:

Jones then recorded a career-worst T11 U.S. Open finish in 1927, the only time in eleven U.S. Open appearances that Jones finished outside the top ten.

Four months and at least 140 neat bourbons later, Jones pulled out his Underwood and vented as only a Harvard-schooled English lit student could.

“I was afraid, after Oakmont, that any criticism I might make of the sand hazards there would be interpreted as an ill-natured grumbling against the course, because I had made such a miserable showing in the tournament,” he wrote.

Right, Bobby. Now get to your point!

The rationale for furrows, as Jones understood it, was to reward “superlative excellence in the play through the green.” Here comes the change in mindset on the blast method for furrowing.

“There was no amount of skill in bunker play which would avail.”

After more writing about how we’re all human, make mistakes, need room to recover, blah, blah, blah, Jones delivered his verdict.

If we're not going to control how far these guys hit it, perhaps this is a Back To The Future moment that the USGA should be considering.... It's not like bunkers are much of a hazard for these guys anymore.

These are partially paywalled posts, so we're able to read only that portion before the "fold", but here's Part II for those intrigued by the subject.  

Geoff's Monday post includes an update on the field:

• Ryan Fox moved up 43 spots to No. 32 in the world after winning yesterday’s RBC Canadian Open in a playoff over Sam Burns. It will be the 38-year-old’s seventh U.S. Open.
• Cameron Young and Bud Cauley, who are Nos. 56 and 58 in the OWGR, respectively, became exempt. Each player advanced through the Columbus, Ohio, final qualifier on June 2 but their OWGR exemption takes precedence and opens up two more spots in the field. Young will compete in his sixth U.S. Open while Cauley is playing in his third.
• The five alternates from final qualifying added to the field: Takumi Kanaya, Doug Ghim, Chase Johnson, Eric Cole and Riki Kawamoto. Kanaya will compete in his third U.S. Open.
• Matthew Jordan, an alternate from the England qualifier, replaces Sahith Theegala who withdrew due to injury.

And a three-pack of quotes:

Dustin Johnson on Oakmont where he was the 2016 U.S. Open champion. “Coming back, I was back here one other time when I got my honorary membership here, for that ceremony, which was really nice. Proud member of Oakmont. I'm probably their favorite member because I never come.

Justin Thomas on the state of Oakmont after recent rains. “It's very, very soft. The fairways are -- they've obviously gotten a lot of rain here the last couple weeks, I think. It's still extremely challenging.

Xander Schauffele on light rough vs. hackout rough. “I don't think people turn the TV on to watch some of the guys just hit like a 200-yard shot on the green, you know what I mean? I think they turn on the U.S. Open to see a guy shooting 8-over and suffer. That's part of the enjoyment of playing in the U.S. Open for viewers...If you're a true fan of golf, it's more about what happens after the hack-out.”

Pretty sure I don't agree with the X-man on that last bit, though he's too young to even know the name Tom Meeks.  Trust me, it wasn't as much fun as Xander makes it out to be.

Lastly, we'll grab the Open-related questions from this week's Tour Confidential panel:

The 125th U.S. Open begins Thursday at Oakmont Country Club outside of Pittsburgh, Pa., with Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy — winners of the first two majors of the year — as the betting favorites. We’ll get to them, but first, what’s your favorite Oakmont storyline that doesn’t involve the aforementioned duo?

Josh Sens. Love him or not, Bryson DeChambeau has become the most reliably compelling player in the majors. He said he’d be going back to his tinkerer’s workshop in advance of the U.S.

Open. It will be interesting to see what tricks he pulls out at Oakmont, not to mention his brute power on such a brawny course.

Dylan Dethier: I’m with Sens — Bryson’s week will be fascinating. He’s been playing the majors so well, he’s been driving the ball so well, he won last year’s U.S. Open and the brawny Winged Foot test, too, plus he has new irons in play…he’ll command plenty of attention. But I find myself drawn to the U.S. Ryder Cup team and its potential members. There are suddenly only two majors left, which means if some players in the 7-15 range have a big-time week, Bethpage could suddenly include a player we wouldn’t have guessed at the beginning of the year. Ben Griffin? J.J. Spaun? Tom Hoge? Or, of course, Keegan Bradley?

Zephyr Melton: Love the Bryson takes – it’s always fun to see what kind of tricks he has up his sleeves for majors. My favorite storyline to follow will be how the course plays. We all know Oakmont is a brute, and early reports suggest the scoring could be high. I can’t wait to see how the best in the world tackle it.

Hard to argue about Bryson's intrigue, as he's one guy I can't wait to see tackle the place.  Not sure that juicy rough will be to his taste....

Scheffler enters the week having won three of his last four starts but has yet to win a U.S. Open. Does a challenging, maddening U.S. Open test like Oakmont versus a birdie-fest setup elsewhere actually improve his chances to win, or does it push him closer to the field?

Sens: The cream tends to rise on tough courses. The only part of the game that sometimes bedevils Scheffler is his putting, and Oakmont’s greens are next-level challenging. But I suspect this week will only underscore the gulf between Scheffler and almost everybody else.

Dethier: Overall it should improve his chances, given he’s doing everything well at the moment. But it’ll be interesting to watch Scheffler — and the rest of the field! — navigate the mental test of what might be the world’s hardest golf course. Scheffler’s mental game is generally terrific, but he runs hot. I’m excited to watch him handle such a brutish setup.

Melton: Scottie is no one-trick pony. He’s won in birdie-fests (Byron Nelson) and slogs (Memorial), so I wouldn’t say that any certain setup will impact his chances. That said, I’ll be stunned if he isn’t in the mix come Sunday.

It's really very simple.  if the golf course has eighteen holes then it's perfectly suited to Scottie's game.

I would remove any open containers of liquid before reading further:

After opening his season with a top-20 finish in all eight starts — including three wins — Rory McIlroy tied for 47th at the PGA and enters this week coming off a 71-78 missed cut at the RBC Canadian Open. A troubling trend? Or a couple of outliers? How does Rory’s game translate to Oakmont?

Sens: When Rory’s on, his game translates to any course. But recent signs have been troubling. The erratic drives he’s been hitting of late will not work at Oakmont. Compound that with some comments McIlroy has made about his post-Augusta motivation levels, and I would not pick him high in an office pool.

Dethier: McIlroy’s trip to Canada was strange from start to finish. I was most struck by one thing he said in his pre-tournament press conference: “You have this event in your life that you’ve worked towards and it happens, sometimes it’s hard to find the motivation to get back on the horse and go again.” It’s pretty clear he’s experiencing some sort of post-Masters letdown. When will he snap out of it? Professional golf is the ultimate grind and the U.S. Open is triply so; I’m sure he’s still eager to contend and to win but if he’s even a little bit elsewhere, that’s enough to throw off everything. We’ll get a good sense of McIlroy’s game this week – his swing, his mind, his grind.

Melton: The comedown after the high of completing the career Grand Slam seems to have caught up with him — and can you blame him? A burden over a decade in the making was finally lifted. I can see how coming down from that rush would make for a rocky re-acclimitization. With Rory’s talent, he’s a threat to win just about every week, but the way his game has been trending, I’d put my money on someone else next week.

Yeah, will FanDuel allow me to short Rors?  Doesn't seem like I'm the only one with that thought:

U.S. Open 2025: Rory McIlroy is 'unbettable' at Oakmont

Fair enough, but of greater import is that he's unwatchable.... as well as miserable.

Should be a great week.  Enjoy the play and pray that the rains hold off.