A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of playing Oakmont during Media Day. As someone who’s teed it up there a few times over the years, I can confirm, it’s never been a cupcake. And if it is, it’s definitely not from Oakmont Bakery. Try more like a five-layer nightmare of 5-inch rough and PTSD-inducing greens. But this time? Something felt different. The changes were bold, noticeable, and honestly, pretty exciting. Sure, the course is still an untamed beast, but the shiny new two-sided driving range might just be the crown jewel. Indoor bays, simulators, and a practice tee that lets you bomb driver without spraying into the playing area. Word on the street is the price tag was astronomical, but if you’re Oakmont, “astronomical” might be your favorite budget category.
Let’s rewind for a second. Henry Clay Fownes, the man who created this monster, wasn’t some hobbyist with a sketch pad and a dream. He was a Pittsburgh steel magnate who, in the late 1800s, sold one of his companies to Andrew Carnegie and suddenly had the time and money to chase golf balls instead of furnace orders. And Henry didn’t do things halfway. He looked around and said, “These courses are too easy. I shall build one that makes strong men cry.”
And he did.
In 1903, Henry and a crew of 150 men (plus a few overworked horses) carved Oakmont into the hills above the Allegheny River. No GPS, no bulldozers, no ShotLink, just a vision for suffering. The course opened in 1904 and quickly gained a reputation as golf’s version of a punch to the face. Gene Sarazen once said Oakmont had “all the charm of a sock to the head.” Johnny Miller, after carding his legendary 63, simply said, “It’s the most difficult test of golf in America.” That was a compliment.
And you’d think, after 120 years, nine U.S. Opens, and enough three-putts to fill a therapist’s waiting room, they’d leave it alone, right?
Wrong.
Oakmont has an irresistible urge to tinker. It’s like that one guy in your foursome who can’t stop adjusting his swing, even after putting for birdie on most holes he plays. At Oakmont, the members aren’t just playing golf; they’re running a lab on how to make it harder. Everyone’s got a theory, and none of them involve mercy.
Want proof? They’ve lengthened the third hole, again. They added even more pews to the already infamous Church Pews bunker, which now stretches 100 yards like some sandy sermon on humility. They took a page from Pinehurst and flattened some fairway bunkers and then added vertical faces so if your ball cozies up to one, you’re in real trouble.
And the greens? Hanse and Wagner went deep into the archives. They studied Oakmont’s golden era (1903–1947), when Henry and later his son William Fownes were constantly refining the course. The updates include expanded greens, reworked bunkers, and subtle fairway tweaks, all in line with the Fownes family’s unforgiving philosophy: “A shot poorly played should be a shot irrevocably lost.” In other words, bring your A-game, or else.
Take the par-3 13th. It used to have two pin placements on the left. Now it has six, including a new one tucked in the back bowl. It’s not so much a pin location as it is a dare.
Of course, Oakmont insists all this wasn’t done just to make things harder. “We were updating infrastructure,” they say. And sure, the new irrigation system is state-of-the-art, and the drainage is tighter than Dustin Johnson’s grip on the 2016 trophy. But let’s be honest, nobody adds more pews to a bunker if the goal is to make things friendlier.
Even the pros aren’t spared. Remember the 2021 U.S. Amateur, when bombers took creative cross-country routes into adjacent fairways? That didn’t sit well. “Too easy,” said Oakmont. So they called in Hanse. The result? Repositioned bunkers, longer carries, tighter angles, and ditches left rugged and unyielding for this U.S. Open, ready to punish any unlucky shot with a possible unplayable lie.
Look, I love this place. Playing Oakmont is like playing golf inside a museum filled with bunkers. It’s beautiful. It’s brutal. And it’s always evolving, even when you think it can’t possibly get harder.
And yet somehow, it does.
By the time the 2025 U.S. Open gets underway next week, Oakmont will once again show the world what a real test of golf looks like, firm and fast greens, thick rough, devilish pews, and a club that never stops asking: “Is that all you’ve got?”
Bring your therapist. Bring nerves forged from Pittsburgh steel. And whatever you do, don’t miss left.
