George's great series being summarized just as we had some contentious Augusta threads leads me to ask the question posed in the title.

With many suggesting that Oakmont has the finest set of greens in the US, Augusta National included I ask why we are not calling for a huge field of fairway strewn with those nasty bunkers? It has no trees so it could play super wide.  Are those Oakmont green complexes not designed for those angles?

How would Oakmont play in those conditions and would it be a worthy test for a major championship? I ask not having played the course but thinking about the lack of trees and the great greens.

Oakmont was purposely design to be penal. Taking away the rough would be just as bad as adding the trees to Augusta.

Good point Cary

Did Oakmonk start with thick juicy pitch out rough or just some unkept slightly longer grass off the fairway?  It did have a ton of bunkers that are now gone to make it penal.  Was it penal from rough or from all those (furrowed) bunkers and the great (and fast) greens? Augusta never had the 300+ bunkers that Oakmont did. The ditches might come into play more as well if the rough was gone.

Look at page 28 of Geoff Shackelford's book (The Golden Age of Golf Design).  There is slightly higher grass outside a fairway cut but nothing that looks like it would stop a ball from bounding into the bunkers. The 18th hole looks like a wide open field littered with bunkers.

Does penal architecture mean rough and trees?  I don't think so in the case of Oakmont.

I would actually love to see the pros playing to those firm & fast Oakmont greens from all sorts of angles. I think it would be great to see what they go for & what they don't, as well as what they have the ability to attempt & succeed at, instead of watching them hack it out all day.

Brad,

I thought the permanent pinching in of the fairways via bunker movement occurred on a few holes, not all of them.  Are you sure about all the fairway bunkers being moved in?  

Ryan,
I'll try to comfirm in a few days how many were narrowed.  My hunch is that it was a lot more than just two holes.  I'm playing with a four or five time club champion who has been active with the changes that have taken place.  He will know for sure.
Mark

Quote from: GJChilds on April 10, 2007, 11:23:45 PM

Quote from: cary lichtenstein on April 10, 2007, 10:47:23 PM

Oakmont was purposely design to be penal. Taking away the rough would be just as bad as adding the trees to Augusta.

Does penal architecture mean rough and trees?  I don't think so in the case of Oakmont.

In the case of Oakmont, any discussion of the penal architecture would have to focus on the number and placement of bunkers, particularly in the fairways, since many holes have bunkers on both sides of the fairway in the "landing areas".  That is quintessentially penal, it seems to me.  I'm not saying bad, but it sure is purposefully penal.

Terry - I agree with you and at one time I believe there were an additional 100+ bunkers.  What I'd like to know from those who have studied the course is whether the design intent was to dictate playing down the center of a narrow corredor of fairway between the bunkers OR to reward challenging one or a set of them with better angles into the greens. The old photo of #18 in Geoff's book is pretty dramatic with its imposing fairway bunkers litering a wide playing field.

It is my (decidely non-expert) opinion that Oakmont would play plenty hard with significantly wider playing corridors, maybe even as little rough as the current version of ANGC.

My logic, as always, is infallible :

In watching a great deal of play during the US Am, I saw plenty of guys botch holes from the fairway. I also never saw anyone - and I mean anyone - knock a shot, even a chip shot, to kick in distance. The course was so incredibly firm that the best played shots left at best a 3-4 foot knee knocker.

Of course, it is indisputable that the contestants in the Open will be significantly better than the contestants in the Am.

But my money would be on, barring significant rain, that even with Augusta second cut rough, the lowest score would be mid-single digits under par. And I personally would prefer that to hack it out rough.

But, alas, it's not my course.

 

If I were Mike Keiser, I'd be scouting sites to build a playalike Oakmont sans rough, to test my theory.

No more 63s EVER AGAIN, right Mark?  

Tom

That makes a lot of sense.  However, if you look at the photo of 18 in Geoff's book there isn't much in the way of penal rough. Do you think the intent of being off the center lines was to tempt shots at those greens complexes or to force pitch outs to the fairways?  Would Oakmont play better with rough that allowed you to advance the ball to the green at less then preferred angles?

Geoff: If the course plays firm and fast with narrower fairways, more bunkers, deep rough, and some of the toughest greens out there who would you say is going to win the event?  Is it the guy with the least number of double bogeys and a hot putter?  Is there anyone who fits this profile - I'm not sure that anyone can be favored under those conditions.  Am I wrong?

Its Tiger Woods hitting an iron off every tee. These guys will really need to spend some time studying these fairways and figure out where they need to hit them or as Mark said, they will be in the rough all day.

Mark, when was the last time you were at Oakmont? Are you sure they narrowed and moved all the bunkers on the 4's and 5's.

Ryan,
I played Oakmont last Thursday and yes every hole was impacted and narrowed.  I know the members like it tough but to me that is just  

For the Open, they can make the course as hard as they want to determine the winning score.  If it is firm and fast the scores could be totally off the chart (if they wanted them to be).  I know that #8 will play all the way back only two of the days (288 yards).  #12 will play from the #10 tee (667 yards) two of the days.  Other hole's teeing positions will be adjusted depending on the scoring and conditions.  To predict a score is nearly impossible but don't expect anyone to finish in red numbers.  I suspect they will aim in the +4 to +8 range but we'll see.
Mark

"However, if you look at the photo of 18 in Geoff's book there isn't much in the way of penal rough. Do you think the intent of being off the center lines was to tempt shots at those greens complexes or to force pitch outs to the fairways?  Would Oakmont play better with rough that allowed you to advance the ball to the green at less then preferred angles?"

Geoffrey:

You make an interesting and important point there about the photo of Oakmont's 18th in GeoffShac's book.

The fact that in almost all cases in old photos and old aerials "rough" areas appeared to be much shorter and lighter (less penal) than it often is these days is a subject that has been brought up on here over the years a number of times. It's a subject I'm extremely interesting in as are some such as Matt Shaeffer of Merion. As far as I can tell noone has come up with a totally accurate reason why that may have been the case back then.

My belief, as I think Matt Shaeffer's is, is that that kind of thing back then (much shorter rough areas) was really not much a "design intent" thing or necessarily a strategic consideration but basically one of the exigencies of maintenance (mowing equipment) back then.

The fact is that to mow those rough areas back then maintenance had to take those tractor pulled big wide roller blade gang mowers out in those areas and to do that those areas necessarily had to be quite a bit shorter than now.

I've lived on farms all my life and I've been mowing grass and fields all my life and the fact is if rough or rough grass was as thick and long back then as it can get now there was basically no way at all those big tractor pulled gang roller blade mowers could get through it. The rpms would basically just get constantly pulled down to a stall because those roller mowers basically just didn't have much latitude on raising the cut height. The flail or rotary mower that is much better in higher and thicker grass was a thing of the future.

So that was apparently an unavoidable fact of life and maintenance back then and probably the sole reason for lower roughs in the old days.

But to answer your question on the ideal rough height to have today on a course like Oakmont, I think it is probably about the way they maintain that course generally. You can find your ball and take a shot at a green if you're good enough and strong enough and probably pull it off with certainly less stick than from the fairway.

What the USGA is going to do with the rough at Oakmont for the US Open though is simply what the USGA frequently does with rough at Opens. It's going to be penal and not many competitors will be gunning long shots at greens because of that.

Wayne and I went through there last summer and just for the hell of it the club had 2-3 holes set up with Open height rough just so the membership could see what Open setup rough is like.

When we played the course maintenance had just cut it back down though on those 2-3 holes because apparently the membership had had enough of it---it was basically ball eating stuff.

So like you, I'd personally like to see it shorter than it probably will be for the Open but it wouldn't surprise me at all if a guy like W.C. Fownes would have totally approved of Open height rough there because he did design and desire a strategically "center directed" golf course and he also was the guy who coigned the phrase "a shot missed should be a stroke lost forever".

And also, Geoffrey, as I'm sure you know, almost all the old golf courses, including Oakmont, back then had fairways which were generally around 50-55 yards wide. Those who really study the subject think that too was probably more a function of the maintenance equipment of that day (those big old tractor pulled roller gang mowers again) than actual strategic design intent of the architect.

I think all the old aerial photos of all the courses of that era will prove that no golf course back then had fairways which were generally the 35 yard width most are today. Back in that day they were almost all about 15-25 yards wider than now, and probably 20-30 yards wider than US Open setups.

TEPaul, the rough was not high on 12, 15, 17 for shits and giggles. It was for the USGA to see/analyze the playability of the grass. Those holes had the graduated cut and hopefully they realized that is not necessary at Oakmont.


Mark, thanks for the report but as Wayne said, we need some sources. I would just like to know what the Fazio gang did and did not do in the last few years.