Matt Ward said;
"In my mind -- Oakmont is a top ten USA American coruse. It is one of the very few American courses that can handle world class play with minimal modifications and yet still entertain member play day after day. How many can say both of those things?"
Matt:
I believe that's such a true statement. How many courses can say they can test the best (pretty much on a daily basis) and still entertain member play day after day?
I'd say probably no course on earth can test the best on a daily basis and still somehow entertain its membership the way Oakmont does. I think most of the answer to that question lies not just in the golf course but in Oakmont's membership. In my opinion, basically the membership of Oakmont has been inured to that extreme daily difficulty over a period of perhaps 6-7 decades. This, in fact was the way of William Fownes, for ages! This was the type of course he wanted to create in all kinds of ways! I think the membership of Oakmont is perhaps competely unique this way in the brutality that course inflicts on them on a daily basis but somehow can make them perhaps not so much actually enjoy it but somehow become prouder and prouder of their course for it!
Over the decades I think Oakmont's membership has come to view their course as perhaps one of the hardest in the world to score well on on a daily basis and for that they've become extremely proud. In my opinion, Oakmont is never even over the top---it's just one brutal but fair test. The greens and their extreme speed on a daily basis, is completly unique to any course anywhere. I have to think members 3 or even 4 putt some of those greens every day but they've actually become proud of that fact a long time ago.
The specifics of the strategies of Oakmont are also pretty unique for a course of its age. It's one of the few old courses that's highly penal on the flanks of the holes making through the green strategies fairly center directed.
Oakmont, is sort of one of a kind, architecturally and otherwse, has been for decades, and should take its rightful place in the top ten because of that, in my opinion.