Sven,
The only green sites I saw moved in all of the articles to date were #8 and 16, both very slightly.
The first article on this thread that Joe Bausch posted states;
"Considering the fact that the course has been developed in less than a year, and that it enjoys the distinction of being one of the finest courses in America, it is easier to realize what wonders have been done. The management has placed no bunkers on the course, wisely waiting for it to become thoroughly tested. It will cost $10,000 to bunker it properly."
"The Oakmont Country Club will feel fully justified in extending an invitation for the amateur championship to be held upon its course in 1907"
My November 1, 1903 article states;
"This (2nd hole) is the only hole that bunkers have been planned for. They will be placed as play next year demands them and will be constructed of well-packed gravel, a hazard that gives the ball no run and sticks it fast."
So, it does some like Fownes had some very definite ideas about how and when to bunker his course from inception, and it was much different than the standard Victorian-era steeple-chase courses of that time.
When compared with the courses being awarded the US Amateur at that time like Euclid and Onwentsia, Nassau and even Chicago, it's difficult to imagine how Oakmont, even sans bunkers, would not be ready for the US Amateur from the get-go.
Have you been on the property to see it in person? Thanks.
Mike:
I have been on the property. I attended the 1994 US Open.
I read the quote regarding the bunkers differently than you. I also read the text you omitted discussing the bunker guarding the front of the 2nd, which sounds like a Victorian concept to me and is much in the vein of many of the fronting bunkers at Chicago which you claim differed so much from Oakmont, as do the "pit" bunkers on its left.
You are entitled to your opinion on this, but understand there is nothing that I've read that suggests that the way the course ended up being bunkered had been conceived by Fownes in 1903/04. And there is nothing, other than opening day hyperbole or local press aggrandizement, that suggests the course was ready to host the best players in the land before it actually did. I can give you scores of articles that note courses as being equal to the best in the land, this was the tagline of the day back then.
Please remember that the article you are quoting from was written before the course had even been played.
Whatever happened with the greens, some were moved, and by 1926, contrary to what Tom Doak recently posted in another thread, every one of them had been remodeled and rebuilt (Aug. 1925 Golf Illustrated).
The bunker system wasn't completed until 1912, after two years of work (Feb. 1912 American Golfer). Whatever Fownes was thinking about in 1903, it wasn't for a number of years that those ideas, if they remained static, were implemented. And we know many subsequent changes were made, including the bunkers Fownes added on a whim when hearing about the likes of Sam Snead driving over existing ones.
Golf architecture in the United States evolved a great deal between 1903 and 1910. The ideals espoused in the Travis, Bramsten and other articles posted in the other thread were taking hold, as were the much publicized views of MacDonald and others. Fownes was the beneficiary of this knowledge, he had exposure to the work being done elsewhere, he saw how the game was changing.
I don't mean to discredit him in any way. I do give him credit for the foresight he displayed in building the course at the length he did, a length that held up over the years. And the routing has shown its strength by its longevity.
But the course was not Oakmont until it gained its penal nature. That is what it is known for, and that is why it remains to this day a solid test for the best players in the world. The course evolved into itself. It did not start that way on day one.
Sven