"Wow, I have to disagree. As a relatively good player, I found Oakmont to be the least enjoyable of any of the top courses I have ever played. Way too penal.
Maybe I had an off day or a bad caddy or both, but I could not wait to get off that golf course. I hate rough that allows no escape. It amazes me that everyone raves about this course.
I have a good body in Pittsburg, a +1, who absolutely hates the course.
There isn't much I don't get, but this one and Seminole, they just amaze me."
cary:
I understand exactly what you're saying; I really do, believe me. Nevertheless, and given that, in my opinion, those remarks really do define you as a both a golfer and a golf architecture analyst.
Today, the Open at Oakmont got about half rained out and I didn't watch much but I happened to catch the interview with Paula Creamer. What a gal she is----attractive, bubbly, smiley, while at the same time being both remarkably thoughtful and articulate about Oakmont. Ultimately, she said she loved it and she loved its seemingly extreme challenge, the challenge to shot choices, shot execution, the challenges to a player's ability to concentrate throughout with no let up etc, etc. And then she said her first round at Oakmont was so tiring it was the first time she took a nap after a round; and then she laughed. She's got the right attitude and I have no doubt she wasn't kidding about anything she said.
In my book, Oakmont, where I've played three state amateurs and officiated another or so is a very different type of course than most all I know. I feel that off the tees it is the most "center-directed" course I know. It makes virtually no difference, at least to me off the tees directionally where you are in any fairway (I'll put some qualifier on the on a few holes later). To me the whole deal off the tees was to get it in the fairway or ideally the first cut (which I liked better than the fairway
) and just keep it out of that primary rough and out of most bunkers and up near their faces.
However, distance off the tees was a whole different deal for me---I needed it and the whole thing at Oakmont off the tees was how much I could hit and still keep it out of the rough----unfortunately for me I was short enough I pretty much needed to hit driver anyway.
Approaching those greens and where to put it on them never really concerned me that much and I probably wasn't good enough to have to worry about it that much anyway; I just wanted to hit greens, if possible and then go from there.
I like Oakmont, no maybe love it, because it produced that sort of unique challenge in a few ways which even the likes of Merion and Pine Valley didn't in various ways.
And those greens and their speed, even back then; we never saw anything like it anywhere else. Even that had its own special ramifications. You might start by hitting putts too hard and go long, and then you'd adjust and hit them too soft and leave it too short. But as I was telling Sully today they were so fast a ten foot putt seemed like a three foot putt and with that 50 year old Oakmont poa strain out their they were so pure if you got the ball on line it was almost like it would ride a train track!
And at the end, particularly if you managed to actually keep your concentration throughout and play and score well you were so tired that like Paula Creamer you needed to take a nap.
I used to stay in that Comfort Inn just off the Turnpike. I think I went to bed earlier in that motel around Oakmont than at any other tournament I played in.
I'm sorry for that post because even though it has a lot to do with my feelings about Oakmont it doesn't have much of anything to do with Ran's question about Oakmont's "delta" at least how Ran framed "delta."