Oakmont Preview

have it set up this week, it's brutal. There's just no other way to kind of describe what it's like. The rough is brutal. The greens are going to be firm and fast. I mean, these are greens by the weekend might get up to thirteen fourteen fifteen on the stint meter. It's been wet, They've had a lot of rain, but I think the golf course is going to dry out.

So one of the interesting things this week is the golf course has been, believe it or not, pretty soft so far through the practice rounds, and by the time Thursday comes around, it's going to be a different golf course. It's going to be a different golf course than the players have been practicing on the greens are going to be faster. The greens are going to be firmer. The fairways are going to be faster. The fairways are going to be firmer. It's just a ridiculously hard golf course.

It's just no way about it. And if you look at the scores. First US Open Championship nineteen twenty seven, Tommy Armor was your winner. Plus thirteen was the winning score. Nineteen thirty five plus eleven, Ben Hogan nineteen fifty three minus five. Jack Nicholas won here in sixty two minus one.

Johnny Miller nineteen seventy three shot five under, Larry Nelson eighty three, four under Ernie Els ninety four in the playoff five under on Hell Cabrera two thousand and seven to one here plus five, and then Dustin Johnson won the last time we were here almost ten years ago at four under. I was out on the course today walking the practice rounds. Gil Hants, the famed architect who was in charge of the restoration here, he told me he thought even parr was probably going to be a

safe bet winning score. You know, the membership here wants it to be fifteen to twenty over. I mean, the members at Oakmont are famous for loving the fact that their golf course is really really difficult, is really really hard. They'll tell anybody that will listen how fast the greens are all the time. So I thought it was interesting and talking to go Hants on what the USGA want. Do they have a score in mind? He said no.

I asked him what he thought. He said even parr, But he said I don't really have a score in mind. I just think even par sounds about right. But the membership at all of these major championship venues want their golf course to play as hard as humanly possible for the best players in the world. I don't know why. I think it's an ego thing. It's not something that I think is really cool. I just don't know why they want the best players in the world to struggle

on a golf course that they struggle on. I guess that's the thing. I guess that it's such a hard golf course and they play it that they want it to be as difficult as possible. But the golf course is almost two hundred yards longer than it was in twenty sixteen. They've enlarged the greens by almost an average of twelve hundred square feet. And when you think about this golf course was made using a couple dozen mules and one hundred and fifty men and they kind of

pushed all the dirt around. And talking to Gil Hans, he was saying that the idea was to go back and look at old aerial photos of kind of the thirties and the forties. So they've tried to take some of the greens back to what they originally were. But it's just there's just no way to describe how hard it is. Seven three hundred and seventy two yards long now parse seventy And if you look at the last

nine winners, eight of them have something in common. And the eight winners of this tournament have all been multiple major champions. This is just a hard golf course to get lucky on. Birdies are very very rare ego or I mean, the next thing possible unless you're holding out. So I'm going to keep saying this on the podcast. It's just hard. And in walking around the practice truts, I mean there is double, triple, quadruple bogie lurking on

all eighteen holes. Every single hole from start to finish. So mentally you know that. I think the players know that going out right, they know that the winner is going to have to deal with some crazy stuff. He's going to have to make a lot of palls. The winner is going to have to make a lot of fifteen footers twenty footers for palls, because if you get out of position here off the tee, if you get out of position, I mean I was in a practice,

walking a practice. Who and watch Terrell Hatton miss a fairway by five yards five steps? Really, I mean five yards being generous, it's five steps. I've walked it off five steps. Took us almost ten minutes to find it, and when we found it it was so buried. He tried to take a lob wedge, made the hardest swing you can possibly make and maybe advance to the golf ball three yards five at a push. And then if you miss the greens, you're in really really deep rough.

You could get completely destroyed by the lie that you've got. And then I think the issue here is the roof is so thick that you have to be aggressive out of the rough, otherwise the ball isn't going to go anywhere. The club isn't going to go anywhere. So you have to hit these shots around the green complexes here at Oakmont, your chip shots, if you're in the rough, you have

to hit them so hard. But the fear is that you're going to hit it so hard it's gonna go over the green right and then you have to hit another one. So the trap and the trick is to hit the golf ball hard enough to get it out of You'd much rather hit it on the green to thirty forty feet then to not hit it hard enough and not get out of the rough and have to hit it enough. So you're going to see some crazy

short game stuff. I just don't know when the rough gets, you know, five to seven inches long around greens where they are very undulated. A lot of these greens either slope from front to back or back to front, from right to left or from left right, and I'm talking severely pitched from front to back, back to front, left to right, right to left, and the greens are going

to be running once the tournament starts. The greens are going to be running thirteen fourteen, fifteen on the stip meter, and it's going to be windy and it's going to be hot, so they're going to bake out and it is a very very difficult test of golf. Let's just go through the holes. First hole, part four, just four eighty eight. I mean, fairway isn't really big. It kind of you hit out. You hit the fairway, then you're hitting down the hill to a green that severely slopes

from front to back. So a lot players in the practice rooms trying to figure out do they land it short and then try and let it run. The thing is, you want to be putting from the back portion of this green, regardless of where the flags are, because then you're putting uphill. If you're on the front part of the green on one and the pin is anywhere on the back, you're basically putting straight downhill and there's a lot of movement. So if you miss the green, you're struggling.

I mean you're just struggling the next hole. Another part four, three forty six. I think a lot of it will be club selection off the tee. DJ in the practice rounds who won here in sixteen. He hit one of his seven woods just to make sure he got the ball and play the Pharaohs pretty ride Noah Kent, who I teach the amateur. Noah almost drove the green twice, so he was choosing driver to get it up there.

But that green slopes severely from back to front right, and there's all these little nooks and crannies where you can kind of put the pin on two right. So I do think that accuracy off the tee is I'm an accurac sea off the tee on all these holes is going to be really really important. So I think on two it's going to be how far up do you want to try and risk getting the ball? So obviously the closer you get it, the easier the chip shot.

I watched Scotti Scheffler in one of the practice rounds, hit it to the middle of the green, had a little bit too much spin this was on Tuesday, and spin it all the way back off the green and roll back and he had a twenty yard pitch shot. So it severely, severely slopes from back to front. And then the third hole on the left hand side of the third hole the famous church pew bunkers. This is one of the hardest par fours on the planet Earth.

Four hundred and sixty two yards uphill so you're hitting to an upslope, and then the green has a massive, massive false front, and a lot of the approach areas here at Oakmont they're basically like putting green. They're rolling ten on the putting green. So specifically on the third hole, if the ball kind of gets on to the front edge and then rolls off, it's going to roll a

long way. Then you're chipping back up the hill. You obviously don't want to go over this green because in sixteen it was basically just like the front it was false front shaved down, so if you went over the green you had the same thing. It would roll all the way to the bottom part of the redesign and the restoration on three as they've taken out that back portion, so it's just rough. They're going to tuck pins kind

of all over the place. And that's the thing about these greens, and the green complex on the third hole has a lot of slope to it from right to left right, so where they put these pins, it's just I just can't describe how hard it is. Fourth hole, one of the par five's just six hundred and eleven yards. You have to get this in play off. The tee and then the green. I mean, really there are a

lot of slopes. There's a back portion to the fourth green that's kind of on a little bit of a shelf, and then everything around the back portion in the right portion of the fourth green just basically falls off. But you've got the church pew bunkers all the way down the left hand side six hundred and eleven yards. I mean, you've got to hit a really good drive to be able to get to where you could go for it

the layup area. Most of the guys, if they can't get to they're probably going to be going in with something kind of right around one hundred and one yards, around one hundred yards in two thousand and seven. In twenty sixteen, easiest hole on golf course, So this is one of the legit birdie chances. Everything kind of funnels to the middle of this green, but they will tuck the pins on four. The par five kind of in

a bunch of different unique areas. The fifth hole another part four four hundred eight kind of a little bit uphill, so you can't see the green. It's a blind t shot, but it's kind of going to be a wedge. So this is another of I think a birdie chance. I mean, you definitely if you hit this fairway, your probably I mean the three hundred yard mark is going to leave you right around one hundred yards in. So I think a lot of players will will kind of figure out

where they want to hit it off the tee. It's the second smallest green on the property, so it's a tiny green, but you're going in it with a short iron or a wedge. The first of the par threes, the sixth hole, downhill two hundred yards, you have to hit this green. There is a lot of slope, I mean a tremendous amount of slope here from right to left. So anything on the right hand side is going to funnel.

The back right, I think is going to be an interesting pin position because if you're trying to go at that and you miss it, you are in severe off the bunkers around the sixth hole not a bad option. But yeah, Part three over two hundred yards, the seventh hole, Part four four hundred and eighty five yards. They've put a bunker that wasn't there in twenty sixteen on the left hand side, and it's right around three hundred to

carry that. But this hole kind of plays into the prevailing wind, so it's going to be into the wind. But again you have to hit the fairway here. Three hundred yards kind is going to give you that one eighty to one seventy five range to a green that is severely undulated and it slopes from left to right, So on the previous hole, it slopes from right to left. On the par four seventh, severe slope from left to right, and the runoff area on the front portion of this

green kind of funnels. Anything on the left side of this green to the front flags is going to funnel off. A bunch of guys were going down in front of the bunker on seven, down at the bottom and hitting all the way up to the left hand portion and letting it then roll back to where the flags were. There's a right hand kind of a front right pin position on seven that if you go at it, you'll be challenging the bunker. So yeah, it's really really hard.

Part four almost five hundred yards long. The eighth hole almost three hundred yards into the wind. I just don't know how I feel about it. Three hundred yard Part three, I mean, is there skill involved in that? I mean, I just don't think there's a lot of skill involved in that. I mean, there's no real club selection choice. It's either going to be three wood for some players, it's going to be driver for a lot of players. But again, a lot of area to run the ball onto.

The front of the eighth it's very flat, it's very very firm, very very fast, but the green does kind of pitch a little bit from back to front. And then the ninth hole blind t shot ditch on the left hand side of the fairway, So if you miss a fairway on the left, you're in this kind of ditch that runs all the way down from the clubhouse. If you miss it to the right, you're in Bunker's second hardest hole on the golf course last time they were here. So it's a tough hole and it's uphill.

Bunkers on the right are no bargain. I mean, it's just just one of the most demanding holes on the property. So you get through the ninth, then you go the downhill tenth part four four forty seven. It was one of the narrowest fairways on the golf course. Bunkers on both sides, and there's kind of a ditch that kind of intersects, so the green severely slopes from right to left and front to back. Birdie putts are almost non existent, so downwind there is runout and you could run out

into one of these ditches. So I do think this is one of the greens that you can use some creativity with to depending on where you want to land the golf ball. But a very very difficult downhill par four, and then the eleventh hole up the hill three point ninety one, so you're hitting up to kind of a plateau. If you don't get it all the way up on the top of this plateau, then you're kind of hitting off of an upslope on an uphill hole anyway, which the ball can balloon on you. But the green is

somewhat flat. On eleven, there's a little bit of slope from back to front and from left to right, but it is one of the flatter greens on the property at Oakmont, and at only four hundred yards. If you hit a good t shot, hit the fairway, get it

up on the top. Yeah, I mean it's I don't know, it's a makeable birdie putt, but second easiest green to hit in regulation in sixteen seventy six percent of the field hit this green, so again it's one of the shorter holes, the shorter par four, and it gives you a little bit of a break. And then the two par fives at Oakmont on the front six eleven, on the back six hundred and twelve yards, it's going to take three really really good shots. There's bunkers on both sides.

The green slopes severely from front to back, so any shot into this green is extremely difficult. To hold the green at the par five twelve, so you've got two birdie chances on the par fives layups. You gotta make sure you don't hit it in one of the there's a bunker left of the green, so you've got to make sure that you don't hit it here. But a lot of creativity around the green here. It's going to take a lot of figuring out where to land it.

Thirteen par three, one hundred and eighty two yards. The green is almost I think it's forty two paces long, bunkers all the way around it. Yeah, I mean you got to stay below the hole. Anything that gets above the hole at the thirteenth you're gonna be putting straight down the hill, I mean, and so let's see, you've got a birdie chance below the hole and you run it three feet past right now, you've got a three

foot pot down basically a mountain on ice. That's how fast the greens are, so you've got to keep it below the hole. On the thirteenth, fourteenth hole another powerfuller, one of the shorter portfols three hundred and seventy nine yards, pretty much straight off to tea. It's going to give you pretty easy shot. So this is one of the easiest greens on the on the golf course. It's pretty flat and it's a legit birdie chance. So the green complex is easy compared to a lot of some of

the other greens around here. There just aren't a lot of birdie chances around this golf course or on this property, so you have to take advantage of these opportunities that you have. And the fourteenth with the green being pretty flat, it's not super super long, it's a hole where you could take advantage of it, and there are just so few of those on this golf course. Fifteen pole another part four five hundred and seven yards kind of a blind t shot, and the fairway slopes pretty severely from

left to right, so amid to long iron. This is a very big green. It's one of the biggest greens on the golf course, almost fifty yards long, somewhat flat, but there are little kind of slopes and knobs where they can kind of put pin positions. Sixteen Part three, two hundred and thirty six yards long. Yeah, long iron. It's a big green. There is a severe false front at the front, so anything on the front that doesn't get on the putting surface, if it just gets on,

it's going to roll all the way back. So the par fives are over six hundred yards, the par threes over two hundred yards. I mean, it's just it's crazy hard. This golf course is a couple of different strategies three hundred and twelve yard Part four, so a lot of guys will be definitely going for the green. I mean,

unless it's massively into the wind. I think you're gonna see everybody kind of take a chance and try and see if they can somehow get it up there close, maybe get on the putty surface and try and eke out a birdie. If you lay up, you're laying up kind of into that two fifty to kind of two seventy five, range right around kind of one ninety. But this is the smallest green on the golf course, so drive a par four, but a very very difficult green

to try and get to. And then the iconic eighteenth hole. I think it's one of the best finishing holes in golf. You just got to stand up and hit the fairway and then stand up and somehow get the ball on the putty surface. So the clubhouse is in the background, and you know, it's an old school golf course. It's

just it's hard. The eighteenth hole five hundred yards. Dustin Johnson hit a six iron from one to ninety in sixteen when he won, And yeah, it's I just I can't say it enough that the test that this golf course demands from your game, the test that this golf course demands from your short game. You know, the USGA want the golf course to test all elements of the game. They want the players to have to hit all the clubs in their bag, and they do like making us

opens difficult. And I think we're going to see carnage. We are going to see some good shots, we are going to see some birdies, But we are going to see a lot of players struggling to make par. You're going to hear the announcers say that is an unbelievable up and down. That is an unbelievable par. It's just

that type of golf course. And when you go back and you look at the people that have won here, Dustin Johnson, one of the greatest players of the modern generation on hell, Cabrera doesn't get nearly the credit he deserves for the ball striking he had. Ernie L's winning here in nineteen ninety four, Ben Hogan's won here. Jack Nicholas is one here. So this is a big boy

golf course that demands great play from great players. And the way that Rory drove the golf ball last week, the way he drove the golf ball at Quail Hollow, He's been talking about trying to find a driver because his driver failed testing at the PGA. If Roy doesn't drive it good here, he's going to struggle. Everyone is going to struggle if they don't drive it well here.

But for the favorites, guys like Rory, guys like Scotti, Scheffler, all the superstars, you have to drive it well and then you have to be really, really smart with your irons. You've got to put it in positions to where you've got to think about, Okay, if I could try and get this close but be above the hole, is it more prudent to be below the hole? And then I can be a little bit more aggressive with the putt because the golf course over the four days is going

to change a lot. It's going to get firmer, it's going to get faster. So I think you will see the usual cast of characters on the leaderboard. This golf tournament always grows up someone maybe that isn't a household name, isn't a superstar, but expect chaos. This is golf chaos in its purest form. And I think the winner here will also have to win the golf tournament, win the championship,

hold the trophy, be a major champion. He'll have to win it not only with his body, with his stamina, but he'll have to win it with his mind as well, because you have to think your way around this golf course, and it's the type of golf course to where you just cannot switch off. There are no holes out here where you can go Okay, I can just cruise through three or four holes here and just you know, make

a bunch of pars. Every single hole here. It seems like it's a struggle to make par, and that's what the USG likes. The members here love it. The players are and needs time off after this one, because as I said, this is a big, big ballpark. It's a big boy golf course. And the winner here this week at Oakmont for the twenty twenty five US Open, he will have had in My uncle Dicky used to say, he will have to golf his ball, and I'm excited. It's going to be a war of attrition. You're going

to see some crazy stuff. You're going to see some big numbers from the best players in the world. And the third major of the year. I think the majors that we've had up to this point pretty damn good. And I'm expecting the same thing this week. So hope everyone enjoys the twenty five US Open from Oakmont. It's always a privilege and pleasure to be here. And yeah, buckle up, kids, this will be exciting. It's the Son

of a Bitch podcast. We will come to you next week with a wrap up of the third major of the year,