I was lucky enough to join Brian and Dave (and Brad) for the first round of their trip at Oakmont. What an incredible place, and an absolutely awesome course.
The first thing that hit me when I saw the course was how open it felt. You can see all the way across the back nine (and #1 & #9), across the highway, and view almost the entire lot of holes (#2-8) from the clubhouse/putting green. Since playing the course, I have seen various photos of the course prior to the tree removal program; I was absolutely blown away at how different it looks now from then. I would never have thought it was the same course. I personally think the open look suits the course much better; the terrain is very rolling and the vistas across the course are quite stunning.
As Brian mentioned, the site is much hillier than it appeared on TV for the open (I would assume this happens to a lot of courses, ANGC would be the most famous example). There were quite a few pretty decent uphill (#9, 11, 17!) and downhill (#3, 4, 10, 12) tee shots, which I was surprised by.
The best part of the course to me was that it just reeked of strategy on every hole. Whether or not you knew what those strategies were was a completely different issue all together (in our case, four virgins to the course, we usually did not). Hitting specific sides of fairways and putting your ball on specific sections of the greens is a must. The greens had just been punched and sanded, so they didn’t have nearly the amount of bite they would usually have. Our caddies were continually saying “that ball is off the green in July” and “they couldn’t even put a pin there in August”. But even with the greens in the shape they were, they were still extremely challenging. Missing above the hole or short siding yourself brings big numbers into play.
For our round, the rough and long grasses were not nearly at the normal lengths, therefore not as penal. I can only imagine how much tougher the course would have played with longer rough and deep fescue.
I have never played a course with more penal bunkering. The lips are so high on most of the fairway that you’re lucky to be able to advance a wedge 100 yards, and if you’re near the face, forget about it, you’re chipping out. Many of the greenside sand traps had vertical grass faces, which meant very few uphill lies to help you get over them.
Don’t mistake all this talk about the difficulty of the course as me saying it wasn’t fun…This round definitely ranks in my top two or three rounds of my life on the fun scale. The course can definitely beat you up, but it feels more like a chess match than being in a ring w/ Mike Tyson.
I won’t go into specific holes, b/c that has been done extensively already on this site (see George Pazin’s awesome write-ups:
http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,28758.0.html )
but if I had to name a few favorites, I would list #2, 3, 5, 9, 12, 13, 15& 18.
It was truly a round I will never forget, my only regrets are that the greens weren’t up to the normal standards/speeds, but hopefully someday I’ll have a chance to get back to Oakmont and experience them in their true glory.
Cheers