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Yahoo
16-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
'It better not be easier when you're done': 5 things I learned from Gil Hanse on Oakmont
OAKMONT, Pa. – It's not every major championship where you get invited to have breakfast with the man most responsible for the renovation of Oakmont. But thanks to the good people at Rolex, I sat next to this era's unofficial 'Open Doctor' Gil Hanse, while enjoying an omelet. Hanse's handiwork is on Open venues past and present, such as Winged Foot and Merion (also, The Olympic Club, which has a PGA and Ryder Cup and U.S. Amateur on the books) and he prepped Oakmont for the 125th U.S. Open in 2023. I listened to him hold court to a dozen or so members of the media and here are five things I learned from Hanse on Oakmont that you'll want to know either to enhance your experience as a viewer or spectator this week. This is the overriding philosophy that guided the changes to Oakmont GIL HANSE: You had a very interesting setup where you had a family, a father and a son [Henry and W.C. Fownes] who were here for 44 years, from 1903 to 1947, that continually tinkered with the golf course. We focused on 44 years and a family that was insistent on making sure the difficulty increased, never decreased; you had a lot of homework to do. So we decided that we couldn't focus on a point in time for Oakmont, but we could focus on, in our opinion, what we thought the best version of each whole was. What you're seeing now is basically an eclectic or greatest hits 18 holes presented by the Fownes. Advertisement We worked with the membership to try to figure out what would provide the best test for the greatest golfers in the game, but also an adequate test for this membership, and I'm hopeful we hit on every hole out there. One of the things that has been consistent with Oakmont from day one, when Henry Fownes founded it, and one of the things that was very clear in the messaging from the membership, is they liked this place tough. They wanted it to play hard. It's the only time I've ever come out of a meeting with the members where we presented the master plan, and it was very, very clear to me that the message was it better not be easier when you're done. Usually, members are like, 'Please make it more playable, a little bit easier,' but here, no ... I've used the phrase unapologetically difficult. That's what [the field is] getting this week. ... By the way, I don't think it's urban myth, but there is a swimming pool underneath those tents, and the reason he left the club was because they put in a swimming pool. He said this is a golf club and the board still voted to put that in, and he said, 'I'm out.' That tells you their mentality when it comes to [the setup of the course]. Jun 11, 2025; Oakmont, Pennsylvania, USA; General view as Ben Griffin and Ryan Gerard and Chandler Blanchet and Frankie Harris walk up the on the 18th hole during a practice round for the U.S. Open golf tournament at Oakmont Country Club. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-Imagn Images Choices entice players to make decisions GH: At No. 2 and 14, we've opened up landing areas, trying to entice them to take a longer club and hit it a little bit further, which might be counterintuitive. Some people might think you want to just squeeze it off and make them hit longer irons in, but we'd rather them make that decision, that was part and parcel with the design there. The "church pew" bunkers at Oakmont Country Club in Oakmont, Pennylvania. (Photo: Charles LeClaire/USA TODAY Sports) This is why Hanse added another pew — a 13th — to the famed Church Pews bunker GH: Because of the distance where (players) hit it. We added 40 yards to the back of three, so it's now 340 to carry the Church Pews. And then same on 4, going back the other way, we needed to add length to it. We thought if we expanded the footprint of the bunker and left the same number of pews in there, the spacing and the scale would have been out of kilter. They added pews before in '07, so it's not like we did something that's never been done before. And then we also looked at the configuration of the pews, and there's a great photo of William Fownes standing on the pews, and the caption underneath is 'The Snake Mounds at Oakmont.' They weren't even called the Church Pews early on, and they were much more irregular and mounded, and they twisted, and I think that's part of the snake thing. They had become very regularized over a long period of time. So if you look at them now, they've got more humps and bumps, and they're twisted and turn a little bit to be a little bit more accurate. And so that was nerve-wracking, to be honest. Whenever you tear apart something that is so iconic, it's – we had Kye Goalby and Matt Smallwood, were our two shapers who did phenomenal work and they are super talented – they were frozen for a little while. Taking that first bite, it was hard to get them to do it. Hanse's involvement in the course set-up decisions this week will be minimal Bryson DeChambeau's club face disappears in the rough while he contemplates his next shot during the 125th U.S. Open practice round on June 11, 2025 at Oakmont Country Club in Oakmont, Pa. GH: Those of you may remember, I had a very brief television career with Fox when they had the U.S. Open, and I made it part of my research – because we weren't involved in any of the golf courses at that time – to walk the set up in the morning just to learn and listen. I was respectful and thoughtful and just basically listened, didn't interject, and I still don't interject a lot because those guys are great at what they do. I see how much energy and effort they put into it. If they ask me a question, I'll answer it, but I'm not out there pointing and waving, but yes, they've invited me to be part of an early morning, 5:30 a.m. walk around, and then every day there's a set up meeting at 2:30 p.m., and I sit quietly and if they ask me a question, I'm happy to answer it ... but my hands are off the wheel this week. This is where Hanse would camp out and watch the entire field play through GH: I love the short four, so I think I'd probably watch them play No. 2, and I love what we did to 13 green. I think the restoration to 13 green is going to be fascinating to watch those guys putt into different hole locations. You also can see 12, which always provides a lot of interest. So yeah, I would say probably 13 and 2. This article originally appeared on Golfweek: 5 things I learned from architect Gil Hanse on his Oakmont renovation
Irish Times
12-06-2025
- Sport
- Irish Times
US Open: ‘Unapologetically difficult' Oakmont to provide serious challenge for McIlroy and Lowry
The time for talk has gone, replaced by a requirement for actions rather than words to speak loudest; and, for those 156 players in this 125th edition of the US Open with genuine ambitions of laying claim to the title, the third Major of the year, the challenge ahead of them is unquestionably the most difficult of all. 'This is probably the hardest golf course that we'll play, maybe ever,' remarked world number one Scottie Scheffler , seeking to back up his US PGA success of last month by adding the US Open to his glowing career CV. Sympathy for players facing such an examination would be hard to find. Perhaps only in a dictionary, in truth. Gil Hanse, the designer who has recreated many of the characteristics of the Fownes' original on this treeless terrain in western Pennsylvania, claimed of the task at hand to be an 'unapologetically difficult' one, with no favours given or expected. While the USGA's John Bodenhamer put it succinctly of such a tough course setup, 'It's not about the score, it's about getting every club in a player's bag dirty, all 15 of them. The 14 in their bag and the one between their ears!' READ MORE Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry again headed off into the rising sun for their final practice and the bromance will move with them onto the championship itself with a very friendly three-ball for the opening two rounds, the three-ball group completed by Justin Rose, their Ryder Cup teammate and likely captain for Adare Manor in 2027. Rory McIlroy (L) of Northern Ireland and Shane Lowry (R) of Ireland laugh on the green of the ninth hole. Photograph: Erik S Lesser/EPA McIlroy, the Masters champion, has reverted to a TaylorMade Qi10 driver in his attempt to utilise the most powerful weapon in his armoury. A missed cut at the Canadian Open – his first missed cut in almost a year, stretching back to last year's 152nd Open at Troon – at least gave the Northern Irishman an opportunity to spend the weekend working on finding the right driver (his old driver failed the CT – characteristic timing – test ahead of the US PGA). Finding the right replacement has proven difficult, choosing not to put the newer Qi35 into his bag. 'Every driver sort of has its own character and you're trying to manage the misses ... I feel like I'm in a better place with everything going into this week,' said McIlroy ahead of this latest examination where length and accuracy, usually his strength, are required assets for those with genuine ambitions. Despite the dip in form since completing the career Grand Slam at Augusta, McIlroy – runner-up at the past two US Opens, most painfully at Pinehurst last year – again, rightfully, is very much among those with such ambitions. McIlroy's only US Open win came back in 2011 but he has finished top-10 in each of the past six: 'I made the decision at that back end of 2018 into 2019, to try to build my game around the toughest tests that we have in the game ... the US Open went from probably my least favourite major to probably my favourite because of what it asks from you, and I love that challenge.' Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland plays a shot from the bunker on the fourth hole during a practice round. Photograph: Patrick Smith/Getty There are only two Irish players in the field, and both entitled to entertain thoughts of being on the 18th green for the trophy presentation. Lowry – runner-up to Dustin Johnson in 2016, having carried a four-stroke lead into the final round – has played so consistently all season, including two runners-up finishes in the Pebble beach pro-am (behind McIlroy) and the Truist (behind Sepp Straka). 'Because I played well here in 2016 people automatically think you're going to play well this week. But I don't think like that. I'm always on the edge of my anxious self, where, you know, I want it so much, but I don't want to think that I'm [entitled], my confidence levels can't be too high. I just need to be myself, just need to bring myself back down to earth. And, you know, throw all my expectation away going to that first tee and give it a run,' explained Lowry of his mindset. McIlroy and Lowry and everyone in the field are aware of the challenge set by Oakmont, with Scheffler – again – entitled to carry the mantle of favouritism give a form-line that has seen him win three of his last four outings, including the PGA. 'This golf course, there's not many trees out there, but there's so many bunkers. I don't really know if this is a golf course you can necessarily just overpower with kind of a bomb and gouge type strategy, especially with the way the rough is. You have to play the angles. Some of the greens are elevated, other ones are pitched extremely away from you,' said Scheffler of the task ahead. That 15th club between the two ears could prove to be the most important of them all.
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Yahoo
U.S. Open: The story behind the Oakmont Chainsaw Massacre
OAKMONT, Pa. — On the list of 'sounds you don't want to hear after midnight,' the angry whine of chainsaws is way high on the leaderboard. So in the early 1990s, when the wife of Oakmont's club pro, up in the small hours to feed her infant child, heard the distinctive buzz of chainsaws radiating out from the course, she asked her husband what on earth could be happening. Bob Ford, Oakmont's longtime professional, attempted to dodge his wife's question, but finally came clean: the trees that had enshrouded Oakmont for decades were coming down. Advertisement The Oakmont Chainsaw Massacre divided the posh private club, as well as the many pros who had battled its sloping fairways and rippling greens. But when the tree-ectomy was complete, when the course had been stripped nearly bare of its thick tree canopy, virtually everyone who came to the historic course understood: this was the original idea all along. Designed by a steel magnate, amateur golfer and genuine hard-head by the name of Henry Fownes, Oakmont was always meant to stand alone. Fownes intended the course, which opened in 1904, to resemble the links of Scotland. In Fownes' mind, vicious rough, scorecard-devouring bunkers and grease-slick greens would provide more than sufficient challenge. No trees were needed, so he cleared them out. Advertisement But as demanding as Fownes was, his son W.C. ratcheted up the tension and pressure even higher on Oakmont's players. The course's bunkers, already fearsome, frequent, deep and positioned to induce maximum fear, were raked in deep furrows, the Allegheny River sand carved by a hundred-pound rake called the 'Devil's Backscratcher.' 'The virility and charm of the game lies in its difficulties. Keep it rugged, baffling, hard to conquer, otherwise we shall soon tire of it and cast it aside,' W.C. Fownes allegedly once said. 'Let the clumsy, the spineless and the alibi artist stand aside!' For nearly six decades, the clumsy, the spineless and the alibi artists — whatever those are — made their way around the vast links of Oakmont as best they could. But in 1962 came a decisive moment, and not just because a young, pudgy kid named Jack Nicklaus knocked off legend and local hero Arnold Palmer in a playoff. Writing of Oakmont, Herbert Warren Wind — the journalist who created the term 'Amen Corner' — called the course an 'ugly, old brute.' That national shaming enraged Oakmont's members. Fred Brand Jr., also a member of the tree-laden Augusta National, undertook a mission to begin planting pines and pin oaks all over the property. More than 3,000 trees covered Oakmont by the time that Johnny Miller won the 1973 U.S. Open with a classic final round of 63, and thousands more blanketed the property by the time the tournament returned 11 years later. By 1993, more than 3,000 trees lined Oakmont. (Fred Vuich /Sports Illustrated via Getty Images) (Fred Vuich via Getty Images) By then, it had become clear to many of Oakmont's more historically-minded members that in adding so many trees, something ineffable had been lost. No longer was Oakmont a Scottish challenge in western Pennsylvania; now it was simply one of hundreds of tree-lined courses, more distinguished by its name than its topography. Advertisement So in the early 1990s, a group of members began an audacious, borderline reckless plan — the slow removal of trees. The idea, apparently, was the frog-in-boiling-water theory, turning up the temperature degree by degree, winnowing the course tree by tree, so slowly that no one — in theory — would notice. But you can't really hide chainsaws, even if you clean up all the debris every single morning. So once the removal came to light, after an estimated 1,000 trees had vanished, Oakmont's remove-the-trees contingent pushed hard to get its way. The pro-tree contingent included a significant percentage of Oakmont's membership, as well as luminaries like Palmer, Nicklaus, Gary Player and Lee Trevino. Today, the only trees at Oakmont are the ones lining the outer edges of the property. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar) (ASSOCIATED PRESS) But groundskeepers and course professionals believed in restoring Oakmont to Fownes' original vision, and over the course of 20 years, untold thousands of trees all over the course eventually came down. The course is magnificent in its stark, open beauty now, and in perhaps the best testament to the Chainsaw Brigade's mission, many other old-money courses around the country, like Shinnecock, the National Golf Links and Chicago Golf Club, have pursued tree-removal initiatives of their own. Advertisement 'I always regard Oakmont as the finishing school of golf,' Bobby Jones once said. 'If you have a weakness, it will be brought to light playing there. It is not tough because it is freakish. The holes are all fair. They are fundamental from an architectural and scientific point of view.' Today, you can stand at Oakmont's Scottish-inspired clubhouse and look out over the entire, sloping property. The Church Pews, the Piano Keys, the cut where the Pennsylvania Turnpike bisects the course — they're all out there, the vast emptiness making them all seem closer than they truly are. Oakmont hides nothing any more, because Oakmont has nothing to hide. The challenge is all right there in front of you. Just because you can see what's coming doesn't mean you can defeat it.
Daily Record
05-06-2025
- Sport
- Daily Record
US Open chief wants to dirty players' brains with fearsome length and ludicrously deep rough at Oakmont
The likes of Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler are about to find out the legendary course will create chaos at the 125th US Open US Open boss John Bodenhamer has warned the game's elite he wants Oakmont to dirty their brains. The chief officer at the USGA is clear the infamous Pennsylvania lay-out is going to offer another brutal test for the superstars at the 125th Championship. Top stars are already fearing the miserable experiences ahead with fearsome length, five-inch rough and over 170 bunkers ready to cause chaos at the 10th staging of the event at Oakmont, a course created in the early 1900s by Henry Fownes with constant modernisations and updates the latest from ace architect Gil Hanse. Bodenhamer intends superstars such as Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy tested in all aspects as he said: 'We want to get every club in their bag dirty, all 15 of them, 14 in their bag and the one between their ears. We're looking forward to it. 'We believe that we can showcase all of America's greatest venues. And I think that's part of our strategy. It's right at the beginning of our strategy, the first pillar. We go to America's greatest venues and I think we can showcase all of those great venues across our country. But here, I think everybody's in store for a good old-fashioned US Open. 'We believe there are just certain places in our game where you stand on the first tee and you look out over the landscape and it is just meant to play the US Open. Oakmont is that place. And it was really built for the US Open. The culture of this club is toughness. It goes back to the very beginning, the Founds family. But it's more than that. 'I think it's great architecture. You think about this place and this was the only layout that Henry Fownes, the Fownes family, set forth with. Their only golf course. And it's the same routing, the same holes. The eighth hole moved a little because of the construction of the turnpike. But it's the same golf course. 'I think it's a great testament. The timelessness of Oakmont. It's just stood that test of time. It opened as a 6,408-yard par 80. It's a little longer than that. The club prides itself on being America's greatest test of golf and it's a quintessential US Open venue.' Speaking on the Golf Channel to the tweaks made for 2025, he added: 'It's really an interesting sort of restoration, restorative project. Gil took really key aspects of what the Fownes design was from the very first day, 1903 into the 40s. And when you think about it, what's been restored here, it will be the first US Open golf course really played as the Fownes intended it to be played since the 1940s. We think that's really cool. And I think really when you look at what Gil's done, the expansion of the putting greens, it's always about the putting greens at Oakmont. They're legendary. 'There are stories, players complaining about the speeds and the hole locations and it's always been that way. 'But I think the other thing with Oakmont here now are the bunkers. Along with the putting green expansions, the bunkers are magnificent, both in the fairway and around the putting greens. I think thankfully for the players' sake, they're not furrowed anymore, but they're still pretty darn tough.'
South China Morning Post
17-03-2025
- Sport
- South China Morning Post
Caspar Fownes backs son of Epsom Derby winner to make an impact: ‘he'll eat it up'
Lo Rider (right) runs second at Sha Tin last month. Photos: Kenneth Chan Lo Rider may have the second-lowest rating in the field but Caspar Fownes is confident his son of Epsom and Irish Derby winner Harzand can make an impact in this weekend's BMW Hong Kong Derby (2,000m). While the 78-rated Lo Rider is one of nine Derby runners yet to be tested over 10 furlongs, Fownes believes the 2,000m of the city's most prestigious race will be ideal for his four-year-old. 'He'll eat it up, no worries. It's going to be a nice race. I think this year's Derby is quite open,' Fownes said. 'There's no superstar and you'd have to think 30-40 per cent of the field are going to be suspect at 2,000m. Ultimate prize! 🏆 14 horses will take their only chance at securing once-in-a-lifetime glory in the 148th @BMW Hong Kong Derby… 👀#4YOSeries | #HKracing — HKJC Racing (@HKJC_Racing) March 14, 2025 'He certainly deserves his spot in there and I believe he'll make his presence felt if the conditions suit, he gets a nice draw and has a good run.' A winner over a mile and 1,800m in Ireland pre-import when known as Sharinay, Lo Rider has yet to salute in five Hong Kong starts. But there's always been a belief among Hong Kong racing circles that he's capable of a big performance and Fownes hopes it all clicks when it matters most. 'I'm sure he'll beat at least half the field home and anything he does above that would be very nice,' he said. 'He's had excuses. One day he blew the start and didn't get a run and another day he over-raced a bit and still ran enormous. He's a nice horse whose future is all ahead of him.' A two-and-a-half-length fourth behind Bundle Award under Karis Teetan last start, Lo Rider will be ridden by Hugh Bowman this weekend. Bowman has twice ridden Lo Rider, managing only a fifth and a seventh earlier this year. Lo Rider shapes as Fownes' only Derby runner in 2025, with Sky Heart second reserve and Sky Trust fourth emergency despite having a higher rating than Beauty Alliance and Lo Rider. 'It's fair enough that he's on the reserve list. I agree with that,' Fownes said of Sky Trust, who could only manage 12th in the Classic Cup (1,800m). 'He's obviously better at 1,400m to a mile, in my opinion, but you give them their chance and hope that they're good enough to give the owners a chance to have a runner in the race.' Before chasing a third Derby win to go alongside those of Super Satin (2010) and Sky Darci (2021), Fownes will head to Happy Valley on Wednesday night hopeful of tasting success. The 57-year-old, who sits seventh in the premiership with 30 winners, saddles up Verbier, Perfect General, Super Contented, Super Sixty, M Unicorn and Sugar Sugar. 'I've got a couple of nice runners and Perfect General gets his chance from a nice gate, so fingers crossed,' said Fownes. Perfect General jumps from barrier four under Brenton Avdulla in the Class Four Craigengower Cricket Club Challenge Cup (1,200m).
