It's less than a "wow" for me. Certainly a suitable venue for a major championship and I agree the views and terrain are nice but it would benefit from a few less tricked-up features.
The famed "Church Pew" bunkers are just ugly and odd for the sake of being odd. I fail to see how the same strategic/penal characterstics wouldn't be equally well implemented with conventional bunkering.
The ninth green that shares a surface with the practice green is out of place at an important tournament.
The drainage ditches providing little narrow red-staked hazards are even less attractive than the "cops" at Hoylake and I'd think a world-class course (which Oakmont obviously is) would accomplish their function with underground drainage pipes.
All that said, there are magnificently over-the-top green green contours everywhere you look. And a few holes, like the incomparable third, are sufficient to render complaints mere quibbles without diminishing its stature as a great venue. But I just can't see how so many people think this is an attractive course, it's a near-perfect set of greens in a sea of multiple-cut rough and contrived bunkering.
All I can say is you're wrong on almost all points -
- and I think you'd agree with me if you ever see Oakmont in person.
In all seriousness, TV fails to capture the grand scale of the venue, and the dramatic nature of the topography. In person, few, if any, of the features look "tricked up". They simply look awesome.
The church pews are a wonderfully unique hazard. They provide a real element of quirk and chance - one can get a good enough lie to go for the green, and one may have to blast out to the fairway.
I daresay if more course had fairway bunkering the nature of Oakmonts, all golfers and the game itself would benefit greatly.
As for the green appearance, it is not nearly as much so in person, that's another area in which TV "enhances" (not to the geeks like us, but the average viewer) the look. I'm not saying the enhancement is intentional, it might be an unintended consequence of changing the infinite color spectrum humans have into the lesser spectrum of TV, but the course looks far more natural in person. Plus, it rained last week and Wednesday night as well.
Mark F, what the winner shoots is irrelevant, it's how he shoots it that will showcase Oakmont's greatness. I don't think you'll see Geoff Ogilvy, a fine Aussie, complaining that the only shot that was required was a good flop shot.
And, as an aside, Aaron Baddeley's wife is really gorgeous in person as well.