From The Book:

Let's see, bunkers both sides in the landing area. The bunker on the left is especially ugly. Bunkers guarding the green left and right front. I say hit it down the center, by hook or by crook get it to the center of the green, see if you can make a putt.

Huckaby doesn't like this one.
 

Truth in advertising:

Langdon Farms south of Portland has reacreated the church pew bunker. If I remember correctly, it is between #8 and #9. I am on record as saying, one church pew bunker in the world is plenty, and it is an abomition to have created another one.  

I don't see much strategy in any of the 1st three holes.
And I'll also say that I think the first three holes look great!
I'm not as obsessed with options and strategy as some on this site.

I like a tough, no nosense test of a golf course sometimes.
These first three holes look like a pefect example of that kind of course.

-Ted

I don't have enough experience with this hole to say whether or not a certain side of the fairway is favored for the approach. I will say they yield fairly different shots. The flattening nature of photography makes the hillside on the right side look as gradual as the one on the left, which it isn't.

As for the green bunkering, I think it fits the hole rather well. On a fallaway shot, the golfer is often going to play short, thus causing him to flirt with the bunkers. Also, if you're on the right side of the fairway - or God forbid, those right fairway bunkers, the right greenside bunkers will cause some real consternation on the shot.

The back area of the green sees quite a bit of action.

Kind of hard for me to believe someone doesn't see the greatness on holes 1-2 and then sees it on this one. But, then again, the photos and diagrams don't even begin to tell the full story of Oakmont.

At any rate, they all play dramatically different, and pose very different challenges. The 3 holes work best as a threesome!

George:

None of the three holes offers any significant strategic challenge... #3 at least throws in something pretty unique to golf - the church pews.  Combine that with the fallaway green, and I can see calling this hole "great."

I have a hard time giving that description to the first two holes.

In any case, once again, all I have are pictures and diagrams.  Would you prefer I not respond?  I thought the purpose of this was educational... It it's truly meant to be just story-telling by the quite small number of people who have played the course, then I shall shut the hell up.

Your call.

 

George believes this course is great in a "clearly better than Pebble Beach" meaning of that term.  I feel confident he finds a lot more to Oakmont than a tough, no nonsense golf course.

To be perfectly clear, I'm a fan of the Goodale Michelin system of ranking, and I think Pebble and Oakmont are both 3 stars, or Doak 10s, or whatever. Each is outstanding in its own way. I think Oakmont may be a better design, by virtue of the unusual way in which it tests each shot.

Ted -

The strategies at Oakmont are much more subtle than the obvious option type holes. Once upon I time, I favored the latter approach, but my time at Oakmont during the Am came to see quite a bit of change in my own thoughts. Maybe someday I'll do a thread on the obvious versus the subtle; maybe even sooner rather than later.

This is the epitome of penal GCA. Why would you guys expect strategy?

Good question.

Perhaps that is enough for greatness.

But George, is that all there is?  Is it really just 100% penal and that's it?

It can be great as such... but it REALLY has to be the epitome... because purely penal is only fun in a very masochistic way, and there aren't many courses that can be fun in this vein... and very very very few that could be called "great" if that's all they are....

See Adam, as much as I loved the old Bayonet - which really was the epitome of penal architecture - I doubt I ever called it a "great" course.  It was fun for me in a masochistic way - and that's why I miss it - but no way do I call it great.

I have to believe that as great as Oakmont is said to be, there's more to it than being the epitome of penal architecture.

Or is this why it is great?

TH

Ted:

I too like a tough, no nonsense golf course sometimes.

I'd just have a hard time calling such a course "great".  George believes this course is great in a "clearly better than Pebble Beach" meaning of that term.

To me it takes more than tough and no nonsense to achieve that, as that is exceedingly easy to design - that is, it's easy to make a course tough - it's difficult to make it also fun.

But to each his own, for sure.

TH

Tough certainly doesn't have to be hard to design.
But my guess is that there is some real subtlety to the challenge at Oakmont. I've never played or seen the course so the following is meant mosly as a general idea of GCA . . .

That 3rd green looks really cool. I bet I'd call the view from the 3rd fairway beautiful. I don't need the ocean or rolling dunes alonside a golf hole to describe it as beautiful. The uphill nature of the approach combined with the green sloping away looks very attractive to me. It looks classy, and well structured.

Pebble is an incredible golf course, but it isn't at the top of my list. I can imagine liking a course like Oakmont better than Pebble. Again, I've never played or seen Oakmont, but I don't find it too hard to believe that someone likes a course like this better than Pebble.

-Ted

George:

Ok, change it to "as good as" Pebble Beach.  That's still an extremely tall order, and well... perhaps a penal death march can make it so... but man it's gonna need some selling.

Mike:

Hell, I'd wet myself to play the course - that's not the issue.  I know I'd find every freakin' shot there to be great for me as a player.  I just continue to have a very hard time seeing such a death march course as being great, as much as it does provide "varied shots", which all three of these holes do so far.  That to me does not make a course great, not if that's all there is....

If that's all there is to Oakmont, then fair enough, it's just not my cup of tea.

TH

Huck-a-baby,

I think you may be looking at things a little too two dimensionally.

I have a hard time giving that description to the first two holes.

Pardon my condescension, but anyone who does not see the greatness is #2, where you can hit virtually any club off the tee and be left with a gigantically different variety of approach shots to the green, well, it's a little hard for me to see that point of view.

On many holes Oakmont is a second shot type of golf course. The primary strategy off the tee is obviously to keep it in the fairway (which is easier said than done - remember on one of the other threads, someone pointed out that he was more successful in holding the firm and fast fairways when he realized he had to work the ball onto them - wish I could remember who said that).

Only the better, more observant golfers, will understand and appreciate the subtle distinctions between two tee shots that may look on the face to be quite the same. I believe it is the ensuing decisions, after one hits his tee shot and looks at what he faces, that makes Oakmont special, and that makes any course of this nature special.

At any rate, my own experience at the course is rather limited, so it's hard for me to articulate the fine distinctions. I will also try to sum up some of my other ideas about the course at the end of the series (unless we don't make it that far!).

I can see some strategery. Play driver down the left side with enough carry to get over the front row in church if you pull it, or lay back in the zone between the first bunker on the right and the church pews, leaving yourself 166 to the front of the green.

It looks like the trouble is the 3rd bunker, but that might not be as bad as it looks.