Oakmont’s Church Pew bunkers rank among the club’s most recognized features.
Fred Vuich/Sports Illustrated
Mention Oakmont Country Club, and certain images spring reliably to mind. Church Pew bunkers. Knee-deep rough. Greens that run motorway-fast, like the turnpike that cuts through the course. For a private a club, the property has a highly public profile. Hosting 10 U.S. Opens will do that to a place. To many fans, the venue simply feels familiar. Maybe you feel that way about it, too.
But how well-acquainted are you, really, with Oakmont? As a barometer, here are seven fun facts that only Oakmont members tend to know.
Ben Hogan blazed a trail here
At the 1953 U.S. Open, Ben Hogan was Hogan-esque, routinely splitting fairways and finding greens en route to a six-shot win. When he finished play each day, though, despite spending most of his time in the short grass, he was irked to note that his pants were soaked almost to his knees. Sensing Hogan’s displeasure, Oakmont’s superintendent sought to appease the man by mowing paths through the tall grasses from tees to fairways. The paths became known as the “Hogan Walks,” and they are still a part of course presentation today.
There used to be another course next door
Oakmont used to have a neighbor, a public layout, Oakmont East, that ran to the right of the 3rd hole. After being used for parking in past U.S. Opens, it closed for good in 2011 and its grounds now serve as a hospitality staging for this week’s big event.
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It’s founder wanted shade
Oakmont was conceived as “an inland links.” But as club founder Henry C. Fownes designed the course, he had the foresight to imagine what it would be like to play such a layout in the sweltering heat of summer. Hint: it would be hot. With that in mind, Fownes planted trees by the teeing areas so that players could take respite in the shade. Most of those trees are gone, removed as part of restoration work that began in the 1990s and continued for years. But a handful remain, standing astride such tees as the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 10th.
It’s officially ‘historic‘
On June 30, 1987, Oakmont because the first golf property in the U.S. to be designated as a National Historic Landmark, a government honor that recognizes sites of “outstanding historical significance.” While other golf clubs have since been added to the register — Merion, Baltusrol and Winged Foot come to mind — Oakmont will always be the OG.
It helped inspire the Stimpmeter
At the 1935 U.S. Open at Oakmont, Gene Sarazen putted off a green into a bunker. A lonely moment for the Squire. But Edward Stimpson felt his pain. An accomplished amateur who played collegiately at Harvard, Stimpson was a spectator to Sarazen’s misfortune, which he saw as a symptom of a larger issue: the risk of greens so speedy, they verged on unfair. Untold hours of tinkering later, Stimpson came up with a barebones invention — a wooden track, set at an angle and fit for a golf ball, with a notch that ensured a consistent release point. A simple effective tool for measuring green speed. Like Hans Geiger with his counter and Robert Bunsen with his burner, Stimpson had dreamed up a device that bore his name, and it wasn’t called the Edward-o Meter.
Train engines used to cloud the air
At Oakmont’s birth, the turnpike that now runs through it was a railway, with trains whose engines puffed black smoke as they chugged uphill across the property. Club founder Henry C. Fownes — the same man who liked his tees shaded — was not fond of that sooty air. And so, the story goes, he made a deal with the train conductors that called for them to build up speed as they approached Oakmont so that they could kill the engines and glide past the club. In return, Fownes would slip them cash on the side.
Its ditches did double duty
Like Church Pew bunkers, ditches are a signature Oakmont feature, hazards that dole out a world of hurt. The one that runs between 9th and 10th holes, crosses the 10th fairway and spills down beside the 11th tee can be particularly problematic. But when the course first opened, its purpose wasn’t solely to mete out penalties. It was also where the sewage line from the clubhouse ran.
