OAKMONT, Pa. — If you take the southwest entrance to Oakmont Country Club, the course sneaks up on you. The tree-lined Hulton Road that leads you onto the property is dotted with quaint homes. Even when the iconic green clubhouse comes into view, the building acts as a barrier between the idyllic neighborhood and one of golf’s most terrifying tests.
Enter the clubhouse and the venue’s history is there at every turn. It has hosted 10 U.S. Opens now — the most of any course in the country. Exit on the other side of the building, and the brawny track hits you like a gust of wind.
“When you stand on the first tee, 10th tee, 18, 9, you get a layout of the whole property,” Jon Rahm said. “You get to see the entirety of it, as beautiful as it is.”
The vast expanse of green grass before you, all 191 acres, appears endless. From the back of the clubhouse, you can see 17 of the 18 flags on the course. It almost feels like a taunt: What’s there to worry about? It’s all right in front of you.
One of the sport’s greatest cathedrals — a course that has become synonymous with the U.S. Open — is indeed beautiful. It’s also a steel-toed boot ready to deliver its famous kick. This week, 156 players have arrived from all over the world willing to be scrutinized by the only course ever designed by Henry Fownes. Each one of them is also hoping that they could be the one with the ability to conquer it.
“I truly believe that Oakmont is the most stressful place to play a U.S. Open,” Jeff Hall, who has been part of four USGA setup teams at Oakmont, told ESPN. “The U.S. Open is supposed to be difficult for the right reasons, it’s supposed to be challenging. It’s about the mental test, the emotional test, the physical test. It’s all of those things. But at Oakmont, it’s all ratcheted up.”
Scottie Scheffler might be atop the odds list and on top of the sport at the moment, but even he, and the likes of Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau, is not taking center stage at this tournament. This week, Oakmont is the main character. Everyone who is teeing it up will have four rounds to prove that they are worthy of sharing the spotlight.
“This is probably the hardest golf course that we’ll play,” Scheffler said. “Maybe ever.”
THE IDEA OF the true U.S. Open has evolved over the years. Once, deep rough and large trees were expected every year. Nowadays, the USGA is willing to choose host sites like Los Angeles Country Club where wider corridors and contours are the course’s defining features. Gone are the days of trying to force over-par winning scores. Now, it’s all about staying true to what the greatest golf courses in the country, and their architects, intended. Variety — of courses, of shots and of styles — has come to be king.
“They’re recognizing the original architecture and they’re embracing it,” golf course architect Gil Hanse, who led the restoration efforts at Oakmont in 2023, said. “They’re not trying to fit a model.”
Enter Oakmont, where the original architecture and the numerous changes that followed over the course of decades since its founding in 1903 have all revolved around one thing: making the golf course more and more difficult. Case in point: in its prior nine championships, the winning score has never been lower than 5-under par. Only 2% of the 1,385 players that have played a major championship at Oakmont have finished the tournament under par.
“One of the things that has been consistent with Oakmont from day one when [architect] Henry Fownes founded it, and one of the things that was very clear in the messaging from the membership, they liked this place tough,” Hanse said. “It’s the only time I’ve ever come out of a meeting with members where we presented the master plan and it was very, very clear to me that the message was: it better not be easier when you’re done.”
Hall says that the club culture at Oakmont gives it the ability to host a U.S. Open at a moment’s notice while also simplifying, to an extent, his team’s role. The biggest change is growing the rough up to the five-plus inches it will sit at this week; the biggest challenge is weighing factors of weather, green speeds, hole locations and tee boxes in order to find the fine line between difficult and impossible.
“You can’t let it go too far,” Hall said. “When you ride Secretariat, you have to hold the reins.”
Between Hanse’s work and the USGA’s setup, difficulty isn’t the sole focus. Oakmont also contains plenty of complexity too. Players often talk about how Augusta National is a place where they learn where to miss as they play the course more. Oakmont, on the other hand, with its luscious rough, deceptive tee shots and vexing green complexes that run at speeds of up to 15 on the Stimpmeter doesn’t exactly give you a place to miss as much as it tells you where the safe zones are and makes the journey to those havens as difficult as possible.
Distance and strength are required to deal with its yardage and the density of that aforementioned rough. You also need the finesse to carve shots with the right trajectory and spin to hold the right slivers of its treacherous greens. And whether your ball lands off the fairway or on the green on any given shot, you need the brains to figure out just exactly how to best play your next shot.
“You go to a place like this, [the USGA] don’t need to set it up any differently or trick it up or do anything for it to challenge both the physical and mental part of our game,” Justin Thomas said. “Oakmont is challenging in both of those aspects. If you just get lazy, like on any drive, any wedge shot, any chip, any putt, you can kind of look stupid pretty fast.”
Patience in the face of awkward lies in the rough or bad breaks is paramount. Discipline in the face of tantalizing pin locations even from the middle of the fairway is a must. A mistake must be both corrected and forgotten as quickly as possible. Compounding them will spell end your round or even your tournament.
“You know you’re going to get penalized even on good shots, and that’s just part of this golf course,” Collin Morikawa said. “I don’t think people understand how thick the rough is. This is just thick. Clubs will turn over.”
Yes, Oakmont is punishing — its bunkers are not just well-placed but penal. Yes, Oakmont can feel, as McIlroy said of his 81 during a recent practice round with tough pin positions, “impossible” but then how do you explain what players like Dustin Johnson, Ángel Cabrera, Johnny Miller and Jack Nicklaus have done?
This is a course that doesn’t just favor greatness; it demands it.
“I think everybody knows this is probably the toughest golf course in the world right now,” defending champion DeChambeau said. “It’s not like every single hole is Winged Foot out here. You can’t just bomb it on every single hole and blast over bunkers and have a wedge run up to the front of the green. I think this golf course you have to be just a fraction more strategic, especially with the rough is so long.”
For some, the greens, whether because of speed or slope, might be considered too much. Michael Kim posted his thoughts on the course Tuesday and referred to Oakmont’s eclectic greens as “Mickey Mouse” while also saying that in order to be able to test the best players in the world these days, “you need a lot of what Oakmont has.”
“I understand this place is hard,” Thomas, who finished 8-over and in a tie for 32nd in 2016, said. “I don’t need to read articles, or I don’t need to hear horror stories. I’ve played it. I know it’s difficult.”
CONTEXT MATTERS PLENTY when it comes to the question of whether this course is too difficult or even unfair under U.S. Open conditions. As regular PGA Tour stops and even some major championships continue to trend toward lower winning scores, with better equipment and setups that favor a homogenous style of golf that champions distance above all, Oakmont’s return to the sport’s consciousness feels like a breath of fresh air. Even players who know what’s in store the next four days are aware of that.
“We’re all playing the same course, and it’s going to be hard. You may think something’s unfair, but it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day,” Xander Schauffele said. “Whoever can sort of deal with it the best is going to play well. That’s the attitude I’ve had, look at it as a fun challenge versus feeling like you’re living in a nightmare.”
All week, players have been featured in videos where they show just how hard it is to get balls out of the rough, or just how difficult it is to hold greens or make putts if you’re above the hole. All of it has inevitably built a narrative that even the best players in the world may look foolish over the course of 72 holes this week.
“All we’re trying to do is build the theater,” Hall said. “We’re trying to make sure that it’s a complete effort. When you put your hands on that trophy Sunday night, you’ve played complete golf from tee to green for 72 holes.”
If there is some frustration among players with the course simmering already, perhaps the first two rounds will bring it to the surface as the course gets drier, firmer and harder. Most, however, seem prepared to embrace it. Some even see any dissent from their peers as a potential advantage.
“Being perfectly honest and very selfish, I hope it psyches a lot of players out,” Thomas said. “It’s a part of the preparation, like trying to go hit wedges or trying to get the speed of the greens or anything. It’s getting a game plan for how you’re going to approach the course mentally and strategically.”
Oakmont can get away with more carnage than most courses because of its reputation. (Hanse said that working on Oakmont, where difficulty is part of the course’s original design, was freeing). It’s why when practice rounds featured groups of groundskeepers using leaf-blowers to prop up the thick rough so it fluffs up and becomes more difficult, it can be framed as both the golf course and the USGA leaning into the personality of the venue, not just making it hard for the sake of it.
“It’s a very fine line between what’s challenging, what’s good architecture, what’s too much. And I think here you’ve got a situation where it’s never too much,” Hanse said. “I mean, it’s almost like their mantra was, ‘Okay, let’s just keep pushing it to a certain limit.'”
Wherever the limit lies remains to be seen, as does how close the USGA wants to get to it. Weather will also be a factor as rain is forecasted for the weekend — Hanse said that if the rain subsides, he believes the winning score will be over par. And while some players may still find themselves frustrated, even scoffing at the challenge at hand, some are self-aware enough to know that havoc also breeds entertainment, even if it’s at their own expense.
“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?” Schauffele said. “I think they turn on the U.S. Open to see a guy shoot 8-over and suffer. That’s part of the enjoyment of the U.S. Open for viewers.”
Nine years since its last moment in the sun, all eyes are back on Oakmont.
Let the suffering begin.