I am not a fan of Oakmont. No trees - in one of the most heavily forested regions in the world. And, the Pennsylvania Turnpike cuts the golf course in half.
Basically, Oakmont is just designed to be really, really hard.
Almost all the greens have significant slope, which means you have to freeze your approach shot within a couple yards, or risk rolling right off the green, into a sand trap or rough.
I’m rooting for Mason Howell, the 17-year-old from Georgia who qualified for the tournament. He just went to his Junior Prom and now he’s playing in the US Open.
It’s good you can go right from Kristen Welker to watching golf.
Yeah it’s a difficult course but a US Open course is supposed to be difficult. Yes I wish there were more trees but there are about two hundred bunkers, the greens will be impossibly fast and the rough - fugettaboutit. So will we get a big -name champion or will some journeyman turn In the golfing week of his life (Orville Moody, Jack Fleck) and become Open champion? When Johnny Miller won here in 1973 he was a professional nobody….
As far as no trees, it did have them, actually plenty of them, until about 15 years ago. When the course was originally built back at the turn of the 20 th century it had no trees. It was designed to be a links course like those in Scotland and England. After the original owners passed away in the late 40s, they decided to turn it into a more “park like” course which was popular then. They planted plenty of trees, but in reality, I never saw the trees come into play. I'm no great golfer and have played Oakmont a number of times back then and don't recall ever having tree trouble.
Keep in mind, this course has no water and no trees and is not especially long and the winner of the Open will likely be 3 or 4 under after four rounds. Compare that with 18 under for the Canadian Open yesterday. Is it tough, hell yes. You have to keep it in the fairway, avoid the numerous sand traps, and really know how to read the greens which are as fast as a pool table and probably the truest and toughest greens any of these professionals will ever play.
If you are a golf fan, enjoy. It does not get any better than this.
At my golf club Royal Oaks in Vancouver WA, the US Open tournament was the hardest of the year. They placed the pins in the hardest position possible on severely sloping greens. My score would balloon dozen strokes over my handicap level.
Thanks for the pleasant thread ! (Not kidding)