The U.S. Open returns to Oakmont Country club for the 10th time – the most any venue has hosted the USGA’s major championship. Naturally, Oakmont is one of the U.S. Open’s anchor sites, as it’s already scheduled to return to Western Pennsylvania in 2033, 2042 and 2049. Global Golf Post’s Ron Green Jr., John Hopkins, Scott Michaux and John Steinbreder gather again for a virtual roundtable to discuss items on tap this week near Pittsburgh.
Is Oakmont the quintessential U.S. Open venue with its degree of difficulty and history?
Green: It’s the kind of place where the U.S. Open could be played with one day’s notice. The membership takes pride, perhaps a perverse pride, in the difficulty of the golf course, which means it fits the U.S. Open as ideally as cheese fits a burger.
Hopkins: Pittsburgh is known as Steel City and Oakmont is a steely golf club and course, one without frills, flourishes or furbelows. It is the opposite of a club/city that has ideas above its station. Such an unfussy, in-your-face, just flat-out difficult course is appropriate for what the USGA regard as the ultimate test in golf.
Michaux: No club in the world embraces the punitive philosophy of golf more than the membership of Oakmont. They relish the suffering themselves and want the professionals to endure even more with rough as thick as the trees used to be and greens faster than Interstate 76 that bisects the course. They speak the same language as USGA hardliners.
Steinbreder: It really is a perfect place for the U.S. Open. It has the history, starting with the first Open at Oakmont in 1927 and continuing to this one, which will be the 10th the club has hosted, giving it more national championships than anywhere else. We are used to seeing that tournament there every decade, we know the course, its quirks and the great demands it puts on the best players in the world and we appreciate that familiarity as we watch play unfold.
Should a winning score around par be the unstated goal of the U.S. Open or should it be a little more lenient?
Green: While there is a sizable section of the golf-viewing public that loves to see the best players in the world chopping out from ankle-deep rough and watching 8-foot putts roll 12 feet past, I’m not one of those. Having the winning score be in the single-digits under par isn’t a bad thing, it’s a good thing. There’s value in winning the U.S. Open, not just surviving it.
Hopkins: Why the obsession with par? I never hear the word mentioned in discussions about major championships at my golf club. Many members would be uncertain what is the par of Augusta National, perhaps the most famous club in the U.S., never mind Oakmont. The winning score is the winning score. Par and a score in relation to par is too arcane a subject for many golf enthusiasts.
Michaux: The dictionary uses phrases like “common level” and “amount taken as an average or norm” to define par. Is that really how a major champion should be defined? Par is just a psychological tool that motivates the golfer. It makes you feel good when you “save” it and euphoric when you “break” it. But the point is to get the ball in the hole in the fewest strokes possible. Who cares if that’s 10-under or 10-over?
Steinbreder: The U.S. Open can be as much of a slog for the person watching it on TV or on site as it can be for the players dealing with the narrow fairways, deep rough and slick greens that are so much a part of it. I’d much rather see a few more birdies during the tournament and the prospects of a player or two making a charge on Sunday afternoon and making things interesting. I am not talking Valero Texas Open numbers here, but 5- or 6-under would make me happy.
Does Johnny Miller’s Sunday 63 to win the 1973 U.S. Open at Oakmont still stand the test of time as the greatest round in major championship history?
Green: Yes, because of where it happened and the fact that 52 years later, we’re still talking about it that way.
Hopkins: Not to duck the question but it is certainly one of the greatest.
Michaux: What does Johnny think? It certainly stands apart as an outlier. It was 10 shots better than the field average (73.8) that Sunday and only three other players broke 70 (Lanny Wadkins shot 65). By the way, Miller three-putted the par-3 eighth for bogey. If it had been the first major 62, Oakmont would still be in mourning.
Steinbreder: A 63 at Oakmont on a U.S. Open Sunday is pretty sick, and almost impossible to beat, especially given how tough the setups always are. I don’t know that we will ever see that again, and I don’t know that we have to. Let it linger in the record books forever like Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak and Bobby Jones’ Grand Slam of 1930.
Oakmont started a trend by aggressively removing trees from its property in the mid-1990s. Is this a good or bad thing for golf course design?
Green: There is something to the notion that less is more when it comes to tree removal on golf courses and we’ve all probably played places where the trees are so dense and intrusive that it feels like one of those homes overstuffed with knickknacks. Like a good haircut, thinning out the trees can do wonders.
Hopkins: Oakmont is demonstrating a current trend, acting contemporaneously, and what’s wrong with that? You wouldn’t recognise some courses in the UK, such has been the tree-removal process. Walton Heath is an example of this. And here’s a question: how many of the trees that were blown down at Augusta, thereby opening up views unseen hitherto, will have been replaced by next year’s Masters?
Michaux: In his book “Golf Has Never Failed Me,” Donald Ross wrote: “As beautiful as trees are … we must not lose sight of the fact that there is a limited place for them in golf.” I’m not sure that means every course needs to be as devoid of trees as the Old Course, but architecture emulating golf’s links “roots” is never a bad thing.
Steinbreder: I applaud what Oakmont has done, along with another classic club that led the way in this realm, the National Golf Links of America. And I’m delighted that they have shown so many others the way, reminding golfers that courses are living, breathing things that need tending if they are to be kept in tip-top condition and be true to their original design intents. Not to worry, the planet is not going to burn up if the green chairman of your golf club orchestrates a light thinning out of the pines and hardwoods.
Now that he’s added the PGA Championship to his two green jackets, is it unreasonable to think Scottie Scheffler could complete the career Grand Slam this year?
Green: Nothing seems unreasonable when it comes to Scheffler these days. When the year began, this seemed the most likely major for Scheffler to win based on his remarkable consistency and it seems more likely now. We’re watching something special when we watch Scheffler play.
Hopkins: Not at all but it will be a helluva achievement if he does so. Oakmont will be a doughty test for Scheffler and if the wind blows at Royal Portrush, as I sincerely hope it will, so will that venue. On balance though, I think we have had enough career Grand Slams this year, what with Rory McIlroy’s, for the time being.
Michaux: It was in Tiger Woods’ fifth season on the PGA Tour when he went on his “Tiger Slam” run from the 2000 U.S. Open to the 2021 Masters, fulfilling his career slam in the process. Scheffler is in his sixth season on the big tour. With all the Tiger comparisons he already gets, fashioning a similar streak would be fitting.
Steinbreder: That’s a big ask, especially when you consider the venues for these next two majors and how different they are as well as their degrees of difficulty. But I wouldn’t put anything past Scheffler the way he is playing now.
If the narrative starts with Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau, who would fill out the foursome as pre-tournament favorites?
Green: Sepp Straka, who has quietly become a perpetual force in the game.
Hopkins: Is Jon Rahm near enough his best to fit into this category? If he can continue the improvement he showed at Quail Hollow, then he is. And then there's Collin Morikawa.
Michaux: Xander Schauffele is the most consistently excellent major player, finishing inside the top 20 in 24 of 32 career starts and top-10 in half of them. He’s never finished worse than T14 in eight U.S. Opens, with seven top-10s. He hasn’t won it yet, but I don’t think a better U.S. Open player exists. It’s just a matter of time.
Steinbreder: It is hard not to like, and root for, Ben Griffin. The U.S. Open is a huge test, and he has only made the cut in one major (T8 in last month’s PGA). But the lad is playing with a lot of confidence and verve at the moment.