OT: Oakmont...U.S. Open scoreboard....starts Thursday

[Blakeon18]

Leader Board - The Official Site of the 116th U.S. Open Championship Conducted by the USGA

The link is to the scoreboard for the U.S. Open at fabled Oakmont in Pa.

I have heard several players calling it the toughest course they have ever played.
Incredibly fast greens...14 on the stimp....heavy rough especially around the greens.
Fantastic history at the course....it is the 9th Open held there.

There is rain in the forecast for Thursday and Friday which may make it play a bit easier.
Rougher rough but fairways would play wider and greens would be more receptive and the greens might be slowed a tad. Stimp at 14 is insane....especially given that the greens have significant undulations.

If no rain and the course plays hard and fast....maybe 4 over wins. Rain? maybe 2 under wins.

Love the 'church pew' bunkers. Hmmm....maybe our very own Icebear has had something to do with that name?

Great story lines: Big 3 of Day/McIlroy/Speith
Can Phil win the only major he doesn't have? maybe 6 second places so far?

For some reason I just love that this course...elite private club to the max....is split in two parts by the Pennsylvania Turnpike...a bit of Americana middle class.

TV coverage
Thursday and Friday: FoxSports 1.....10:00-5:00
Fox: 5-8.

Saturday and Sunday: Fox...11:00 to end of play.

24/7 babble to be sure by The Golf Channel

 

[Orangutan]

Looking forward to this. I know it's a chalk pick but I can't see past day right now. I'll be rooting for Spieth, though. If the finish is half as good as last weekend's Women's PGA, then we are in for a treat.

 

[VAMike23]

If Day drives it as well as he does on his better days, he is the man to beat. He hits it an awfully long way, so that even when he is a little bit off the fairway, he is usually using a short enough iron that he can make do out of the rough. This is somewhat less true of the 1st cut of rough at the Open, but the length is still an advantage. Second cut, forget it, but IIRC there will be two cuts of rough on most holes. I will have to go back and check.

If they only have one (severe) cut of rough---deep spinach that commences immediately at the edge of the fairway---then I think it gets a bit silly, and you tend to get more "US Open specialists" vaulting up the leaderboard.

 

[MilfordHusky]

Oakmont is a great course and on the National Register of Historic Places. It was designed to be absolutely brutal. Over the years, it has been softened by the removal of scores of bunkers and hundreds of trees. The original philosophy of Henry Fownes, the architect, was a "shot poorly played should be a stroke irrevocably lost." As Blake notes, it has hosted more Opens than any other venue. It's where Jack beat Arnie in his own backyard.

The course has some short holes and is not that long overall. The greens are very tough. Reportedly, the members play it with a stimpmeter of 15, and they slow it down to 14 for the Open! Mario Lemieux is a former club champion (great hand-eye coordination and power). The USGA introduced graduated rough in the past decade, in an effort to make things more exciting. What that has done is to reduce the premium on absolute accuracy and favor players like Tiger over short but straight-hitting guys who grind out 18 pars. I walked the rough in 1994. It was not super thick, but it was knee deep and had trenches parallel to the fairways. The course looked impossible at my level of play.

As noted, I was at the 1994 Open. I went with my son, and we had a great time, despite the mid 90-degree temps and high humidity. We got a bonus of an extra 18 holes from Ernie Els, Colin Montgomery, and Loren Roberts. Considering the hills, the weather, and Montgomery's lack of fitness in those days, I figured that Colin was not going to win the playoff. Anyone who can, should attend an Open there. I look forward to the coverage, but I found Fox's coverage last year to be far, far inferior to that of NBC.

I've been fortunate to attend about a dozen Opens. I decided to pass this year, having already been there and done that. I'll sit out Erin Hills next year (too remote), but, God willing, I hope to make the next four: Shinnecock (stunning and historic), Pebble Beach (the best, for my 4th time there), Winged Foot (a tough classic), and Torrey Pines (beautiful and fun). I've been to all of them and want to repeat. I hope my grandson, at age 7 then, will want to go to Winged Foot with me. His father is welcome too.

 

[Orangutan]

Oakmont is a great course and on the National Register of Historic Places. It was designed to be absolutely brutal. Over the years, it has been softened by the removal of scores of bunkers and hundreds of trees.

The course has some short holes and is not that long overall. The greens are very tough. Reportedly, the members play it with a stimpmeter of 15, and they slow it down to 14 for the Open!

Milford, appreciate the detailed post and hearing about your experiences there. Couple of minor quibbles (I apologize in advance for my contrarianism). From what I understand, most of the trees were added in the 60s and 70s and their subsequent removal to the current nearly treeless state actually made the course harder by making it more exposed to the wind and removing a visual aid for the players.

Also, I listened to a podcast with the long time Club Pro at Oakmont, Bob Ford. They asked if Oakmont really played harder for the members. He said that it didn't but the gist was that it plays about the same as it does for the members. An ESPN article I found from '07 said that it was expected to stimp at 13-13.5, which is the same as usual.

Ford did say that sometimes in August the greens can get so firm that they would probably stimp at 19 or so, though he said they would never even try playing a tournament under those conditions.

As for the bunkers, I read that this year they have reduced the rough around some of them so that more balls reach the bunker rather than sticking in the rough. See here for more on changes since the '07 Open:
Oakmont Country Club will be going old school for 2016 U.S. Open

 

[Alydar]

While I have no love for many of the PGA venues where putting becomes the key to victory as opposed to shot-making, the USGA takes their tournament to the opposite extreme. While they like to say that they are trying to identify the best golfer IMO the way they set up their venues more often identifies the most fortunate golfer. There is way too much emphasis in keeping the winning score at around even par and in order to accomplish that goal they create conditions in which the risk/reward balance is heavily skewed to the risk side. The pressure of the tournament always makes it fascinating to watch but when players are forced to play safe due to the extreme penalties of a slightly missed shot make it in boring golf. Instead of using their drivers 8-10 times players are forced to hit fairway woods and irons and bounce the ball down rock-hard fairways. Sure, it keeps scores down but only because of the random bounces that have nothing to do with skill. I have no problem with knee-high rough and hard/fast greens. But when missing a fairway by a foot because the ball rolled 50 yards on a rock hard surface results in the loss of a stroke because it ends up in long thick grass while an identical shot by another player avoids the rough by hitting a patch of grass that slows it down and keeps it on the edge of the fairway it becomes obvious that luck takes on much too big a role in determining the winner.

Watch the leader board. There will be a lot of names that rarely make it to the last few groups on most Sundays, but because no one can use their drivers and aggressive putting results in many more three puts than one putts conservative play is rewarded and these players find themselves in the hunt by making a lot of pars.

Maybe after the fiasco of last year the USGA will provide a fair test and if the rain comes as predicted the players will be able to hit shots that will stay in the short grass. But in any case I'll be glued to the TV all four days.

 

[stamfordhusky]

As several have pointed out, the Oakmont greens are lightning fast even when there is no U.S. Open. A friend of mine who carries a 7 handicap and is a very good putter got a chance to play there years ago. When he got to the practice green - which is a part of the 18th green and plays identically to the regular holes - he was well aware of the speed of the greens from years of stories from members. So he dropped a ball down to practice a flat 6-footer, barely tapped his ball, and watched it roll 20 feet past the cup! He said if he hadn't known the reputation of the greens, he would have hit it 50 feet past.

It's imperative on many holes to b on the correct side of the hole. Better 30 feet putting uphill than 10 feet putting downhill.

 

[MilfordHusky]

Milford, appreciate the detailed post and hearing about your experiences there. Couple of minor quibbles (I apologize in advance for my contrarianism). From what I understand, most of the trees were added in the 60s and 70s and their subsequent removal to the current nearly treeless state actually made the course harder by making it more exposed to the wind and removing a visual aid for the players.

Also, I listened to a podcast with the long time Club Pro at Oakmont, Bob Ford. They asked if Oakmont really played harder for the members. He said that it didn't but the gist was that it plays about the same as it does for the members. An ESPN article I found from '07 said that it was expected to stimp at 13-13.5, which is the same as usual.

Ford did say that sometimes in August the greens can get so firm that they would probably stimp at 19 or so, though he said they would never even try playing a tournament under those conditions.

As for the bunkers, I read that this year they have reduced the rough around some of them so that more balls reach the bunker rather than sticking in the rough. See here for more on changes since the '07 Open:
Oakmont Country Club will be going old school for 2016 U.S. Open

Thanks for the amplification. I had assumed that the trees were original, because that area is well forested, but the course was built on farmland. Somewhere between 5,000 and 15,ooo trees were added in the 1960s as part of a "beautification" program. They were removed after the 1994 Open, when I was there. I was shocked yesterday when I could see the church pews in the background of a TV shot from near the clubhouse. I'm not sure that removal of the trees makes the course harder or not. That's not an especially windy or exposed area (like Pebble Beach). The lack of trees may make the greens drier and faster, though.

The conventional wisdom in 1994 was the the members played the course with greens as fast as, if not slightly faster than, the Open conditions. I'm pretty sure the rough is more severe for the Open. This article says they stimp at 15 under normal circumstances, and they are slower for the Open. The World's Fastest Putting Greens Oakmont was the place where the Stimpmeter was invented, for obvious reasons. Sam Snead said he tried to mark his ball with a dime, but the dime slid off.

Players this week are calling it very hard. They say it makes brutal Winged Foot look easy. Sergio called it a nice par 78 (par is 70). Spieth said he'd be happy to sign for even par.

 

[MilfordHusky]

The first hole is devilish. It will play at 482 yards, so the approach will be with middle irons or so. But the green is hard and slopes from front to back. Look for many shots over the green.

The course also includes a 300-yard par 3 and a 677-yard par 5.

 

[Blakeon18]

Orang: spot-on about the LPGA major at Sahalee last week. Stunningly beautiful setting with those trees...any one of which would be a worthy national Christmas tree in DC. Ko and Henderson battle to 18 on Sunday was great....19 year old #1 loses on first playoff hole to birdie by 18 year old Henderson world #3 now. May that rivalry go on and on. Love both of their games. LPGA is in great shape regarding depth....international players dominating...but Lydia and Brooke speak the King's English better than most of us...so that will help sell their unmistakeable sizzle.