Why do we lovers of strategic courses love Oakmont?

[mike_malone]

 It ain't "strategic" because you can't really choose where to hit it. But, the fun of the course seems to be in extricating oneself from trouble.  The challenges seem neverending on the greens . It seems that you can't really control where you end up on the green; you just need to react to your situation.

   I'm not sure I know why I like it so much ;that's why I started this thread.

[Ed_Baker]

Mayday,

My opinion is that a tamer setup ( cut the rough) widen the fairways and Oakmont transforms from penal to strategic.

" Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, the great and powerful OZ has spoken."

[Garland Bayley]

One fairly widely held view on the Oakmont threads George did was that it was strategic, because you could "choose where to hit it".

The foreign concept to most of us about that was the "where" was determined by how far you hit it, not which direction you hit it.

[mike_malone]

 Garland,

   I wouldn't see that as strategic and I'm guessing you don't either. But, it is challenging. The best thing about Oakmont may be that it is "great" but not easily put in a category.

[Garland Bayley]

It certainly was strategic at the 17th. I would have to review play on the others to see what I believe.

[wsmorrison]

There is still enough width that strategic positioning is not completely null and void.

There are openings to greens that allow ground or aerial approaches (1,2,3,7,8,10,14,15,16 and 18).

There are enough short holes that allow for distance decision making on the tee (2,5,11,14 and 17).

There are a variety of tee lengths that allow different hazards to come into play for low handicappers (41 yards on 1, 38 yards on 3, 109 yards on 7, 63 yards on 8, 51 yards on 11, 105 yards on 12, 30 yards on 13, 65 yards on 15, and 54 yards on 18).

With all the bunkers and gullies, you have to tack your way around some holes and position your shots (direction and distance), not just bomb away. This is just one reason the 12th is one of the great par 5s in golf.

[wsmorrison]

By the way, just because most of us, or many of us love strategic golf doesn't mean we cannot enjoy other design philosophies.  Oakmont may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it is worth experiencing.  An ideal scenario is membership at Oakmont for that style of golf and Fox Chapel or Rolling Rock for a counterbalance.  Nothing wrong with liking more than one style...who says it is either or?

[mike_malone]

 "Tacking your way" around the course is a good way to put it.

   Since you can hit it then find it and hit it again it works for me.

[George Pazin]

What is strategy?

Simply put, thinking or planning. (Rich G would undoubtedly have a deeper definition, but I'm a simple guy).

I don't think there are many courses that place the premium on thoughtful play that Oakmont does. Hence, I believe it is highly strategic. Perhaps not in a conventional sense, with multiple avenues of play, but to not think while playing at Oakmont is surely disastrous. It's not simply "hit it down the middle or else".

Wayne does an excellent job of hitting the highlights, I don't really have anything more insightful to add to his posts.

Just as an aside, what is the distance-related option lacking, Mike?

[Jason Topp]

Based on television and George's excellent write ups:

Variety:

Instead of hole after hole of punishment (Torrey Pines), the course has 4 short par fours, par threes of every conceivable length, greens that slope front to back, and options for which there is no clear right answer.

Naturalness:

Course uses natural terrain to create interesting golf.

Maintenence:

Firm and fast fairways.

Look:

I like all the strange shaped greens, the menacing bunkers, the fairways with big side slopes and the look of the clubhouse.

[Dan Kelly]

Wayne and Jason nail it, for me.

The one thing I still wonder about Oakmont ... and I didn't see enough of the championship (yet) to know the answer ... and I probably won't know even if I someday get around to watching my tapes, because the pros don't play this way:

How often is the ground game legitimately possible at Oakmont, and how often does the design preclude the ground game? This is important to me. Wayne listed a number of holes where the ground game is possible. Is it not possible on the others?

(By "the ground game," I merely mean: landing  approach shots short of greens and having them take the bounce.)

[mike_malone]

 George,

   I don't know! Am I allowed to say that on this site?

[Garland Bayley]

...
With all the bunkers and gullies, you have to tack your way around some holes and position your shots (direction and distance), not just bomb away. This is just one reason the 12th is one of the great par 5s in golf.

Is that why Tiger and Angel strategically placed their 400 yard drives on the right side of the fairway on 12?  

[George Pazin]

George,

   I don't know! Am I allowed to say that on this site?

No! (smiley omitted since Dan's posting on this thread)

You said you didn't consider Garland's mentioning of the distance-related strategy to be true strategy, which I frankly don't understand. Why is it an option to go left or right, but not short or long? On a hole like #2, you could viably hit damn near any club off the tee and defend your choice rationally, for instance.

Wayne and Jason nail it, for me.

The one thing I still wonder about Oakmont ... and I didn't see enough of the championship (yet) to know the answer ... and I probably won't know even if I someday get around to watching my tapes, because the pros don't play this way:

How often is the ground game legitimately possible at Oakmont, and how often does the design preclude the ground game? This is important to me. Wayne listed a number of holes where the ground game is possible. Is it not possible on the others?

(By "the ground game," I merely mean: landing  approach shots short of greens and having them take the bounce.)

Very few of the holes preclude the ground game. Off the top of my head, only #5 among the par 4s and 5s requires an aerial approach into the green. (On the 3s, both 6 and 13 are aerial holes, but that is of course far more common among par 3s in all of golf.)

Virtually every other green can be approached along the ground. And in the case of recovery shots, this option is even preferred quite often.

There is not much width, in the sense of short grass, but there is a gigantic amount of width, in terms of death-penalty hazards - i.e. very little OB, no actual water (but those drainage ditches are kinda tough). You are not going to be losing balls in non-recoverable hazards; you will be faced with brutally difficult recovery shots, however.

Garland -

It sounds kind of silly to say this, but you do have to strategically play your drive to achieve max distance on #12 - you have to play it a little left, and with some draw to boot, to achieve max roll. Otherwise, the strong cant of the fairway will quickly deflect your drive into the rough.

[Craig Sweet]

I think for the most part Oakmont played just like David Fererty said US Open set ups play...hit the ball in the fairway and you win...all week long, if you were in the fairway you had a chance at getting on the green...anything off the fairway equaled no chance...seems pretty one demensional to me....the only strategy seemed to be whether to hit driver on the short par 4's and what to hit on the long par 3's...again..everything had to do with the tee shot...

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

I think it is both strategic and penal. It is one great course.

[Sean_A]

The standard definition of strategic (or should I say maximum strategy) around here would not include a raft of holes with bunkering left and right in the fairway and by the greens.  This style of bunkering in and of itself is limiting from a strategic point of view and Oakmont could only be described as penal if a label is to be applied.  Much like Oakland Hills (which I consider to be a penal course), where the course shines is twofold: the topography and how it is used in the routing and the greens.  Having wonderful land and great set of greens can make up for an awful lot fairway pinching bunkers.  While I wouldn't go so far as to say penal courses shouldn't exist, I am left wondering what could have been if the goal of making Oakmont an ultra test was dropped.

Ciao

[mike_malone]

  One often hears Oakmont described as the classic penal course, but as an avowed strategic course lover I enjoyed my day there. This is why I started the thread; to explore how this could be.

  George,

   I would imagine the defintion of strategic requires width options as well as length.


    While I don't disagree with your statement that the course requires much thought, I think what makes it special are the severe challenges that it offers without the hated stroke penalties.

[Adam Clayman]

Here's a link to some interesting thoughts and some history. The part about a man named Parks is most revelant.

http://www.golfdigest.com/newsandtour/index.ssf?/newsandtour/gw20070622fields.html

[Mark_F]

I don't think there are many courses that place the premium on thoughtful play that Oakmont does. Hence, I believe it is highly strategic. Perhaps not in a conventional sense, with multiple avenues of play, but to not think while playing at Oakmont is surely disastrous.

I agree, George.  Too many people hold the idea that wide fairways and big greens are the only way to create strategy, and anything less lacks in that department.

And surely the topography of Oakmont plays a major role.  After all, it isn't simply clubbing up or down to hit past or short of flanking hazards, but whether you want to hit short or over or alongside, and needing to shape a shot to hold a part of the fairway.

I imagine hitting a shot to hold a fairway and miscuing puts the player in less trouble (bunkers) than hitting too long into ditches or rough?

Or maybe the strategy is more with the shots into the greens?

Do you want to use the contour to work a ball close, or play a high soft one?  Run a shot in, or take the aerial route?  If you have hit too far up the fairway when you realise a running shot is the better option, how do you execute it?

There are quite a few side-sloping greens, aren't there?  Doesn't that automatically create the decision of whether you use the slope of a green to work a ball close, or come in under the slope and hit up?

With front-to-back sloping greens, too, there is always the decision with a front pin as to how to get it close, and how far away from the front you want your 'miss' to be.

And greens a distance above or below you also bring options into how to play to them.

[Phil Benedict]

Oakmont has some great features - front to back sloping greens, par 4's of varied lengths - but I also think that GCA'ers are predisposed to praise it because Oakmont is the poster child for tree removal.

[TEPaul]

I think Oakmont is strategic.

I also think most people, apparently most on here, don't see it as strategic because they always assume that strategic golf must be combined with width options---eg options of being able to choose to hit the ball in various directions. Oakmont doesn't have that on most all its holes and it never has.

But what about options of distance?

That's what Oakmont does have but pretty subtly----subtly enough, I guess, where most don't even recognize it.

If you look carefully at the way Oakmont was originally designed it's not hard to see that the basic theme on the tees of Oakmont is that golfers are constantly faced with DECIDING how much club they dare to try to hit straight!

Most all golfers are under the assumption that the longer the club you try to hit the less accurate it will inherently be.

This is the golfer perception that Oakmont's design works on hole after hole.

If one looks carefully at the original design and bunkering schemes and other flanking hazard features (ditches) of the course one can see that if a golfer hits a driver long and accurately you are able to go by or get past most all the flanking and dangerous hazard features on either side.

What is strategy but a "plan", a "scheme", a "strategem", a choice amongst various things to do such as various clubs to hit off the tee. Of course the choice to hit various clubs in various directions is certainly strategic but it's not the only kind of strategic, in my opinion.

In this way Oakmont is strategic, very strategic. It just doesn't have optional directional strategies off the tees (other than #17) but it very much does have "distance" related strategies off its tees.

I've played that course in a couple of state amateurs and enough otherwise to know what goes through the player's mind hole after hole. All day long on all the tees you are basically thinking; "I'd like to have distance but is the club I'm holding going to give me enough accuracy with the distance it can give me?"

Some people might call that penal because there are no real directional options.

I've said it before about Oakmont and I'll say it again----you could play approach shots into those greens ideally from the exact middle of every fairway.

But the question on every tee is how much distance can I go for off the tees to give me a shorter shot in from the middle of every fairway.

I call that strategic----I'd call it "distance" strategic, not "directional" strategic.

But I do recognize that perhaps many on here don't look at "strategic" that way. For them "strategic" golf is almost always completely synonymous with options of being able to choose to hit the ball in various directions.

Perhaps they should learn to reconsider the interesting "distance" strategies of Oakmont.  

[mike_malone]

 This makes me feel good. I thought it was sacrilegious for a strategy lover to love a penal course. So, now that Tom Paul has called it strategic I'm okay. I guess it wasn't even a sin!

[Sean_A]

If Oakmont is principally a strategic course than any course can be called strategic.  Folks don't need to shy away from the "penal" label.  A course can be penal and still great.  

Ciao

[TEPaul]

"So, now that Tom Paul has called it strategic I'm okay."

Mayday:

Damn straight it's okay and you should be okay with it now that Tom Paul has called it strategic and defined why it's strategic. I guess it's just going to be my lot in life to explain to golfers who love a course WHY they love it.  

Actually there is so much knowledge in my head it's become extremely heavy and I find I have to sit down or even lie down a lot more than I used to.