Why this hectic U.S. Open green has its own set of unusual rules

OAKMONT, Pa. — That practice-green-looking thing that abuts the back of the clubhouse here at Oakmont Country Club? It’s not a practice green — not technically, anyway. It is, in fact, the back half of the 9th green, upon which the USGA, as it has done in past U.S. Opens here, is permitting players to practice this week.

“That’s a distinction that may not seem like much,” Craig Winter, the USGA’s senior director, rules of golf and amateur status, told GOLF.com Tuesday morning, “but if it was a practice putting green back there, it would also mean that it’s a wrong green, meaning players would have to take relief from it, and then that’s not what we’re doing.”

Instead, if a player’s approach into the 9th green at this 125th U.S. Open should happen to carry too far and settle on the section of the green full of practice holes and grinding Tour pros, that player would simply play away from wherever his ball settles. And should his orb happen to disappear into one of those practice holes? “Ground under repair,” Winter said. “You get relief from the hole itself. Just place it at the nearest point of relief [no closer to the hole].”

Wild, right?

The whole scene is. At 11 a.m. Tuesday, as players fired approach shots into the 9th green and sized up putts from various angles, more than two dozen people milled on the back half of the green: players, caddies, coaches, agents, reporters. To be clear, the green is huge — 70 feet from front to back and more than 20,000 square feet — so there’s room to roam, but still, there’s no other setting quite like it in high-level competitive golf.

The unusualness of the setup is spelled out for players on signage surrounding the green.  “This entire green is the 9th putting green,” the signs read. “It has been partitioned into two sections to allow practice putting before and between rounds by using two blue stakes and a blue dot.”

“If you see kind of where that line is there’s nothing that close to it that you could ever put a hole,” Winter said. “There’s pretty steep slopes right in that spot. That’s a kind of a natural break. It’s similar to what we did in 2016, probably within a yard or so of it.”

That demarcation is important, though, because, once the competition begins in earnest on Thursday, should a player intentionally roll a practice putt from the back section of the green, over the imaginary border and onto the front section of the green, he could be dinged with a two-stroke penalty for violating Rule 5.2, which prohibits practice on the course before a round. If a player were to hit a second practice putt on the lower half of the green, the penalty would be even stiffer: disqualification.

Players who accidentally knock a putt over the line, however, need not fret. “Maybe it’s a pull or a push; that’s all gonna be just fine,” Winter said. “We just don’t want players deliberately trying to play” to the lower half of the green.

The split green also means one other rules anomaly is in play this week. While players are not permitted to measure surface conditions (with levels, moisture meters, etc.) on the lower half of the green, they are permitted to do so on the back half, or clubhouse side, of the green. “You’re seeing a lot of things that you would never see on the golf course happening on what is one of our championship greens just because that’s the simpler answer in this process,” Winter said.

Whether rulings would be simple is another matter. But, of course, if all goes to plan, no rulings will be required.