by Oakmont, Pa. (AP) – Let it do that Rory McIlroy is finally a Masters champion and the first player in 25 years who participated in the exclusive list of players with the career Grand Slam. Or that Scottie Scheffler won the PGA championship and re -confirmed itself as the best player of Golf.
They are the biggest stars in the game on their way to the third major of the year. They may not be the most important attraction. One name that affects everyone’s attention at this US open: Oakmont.
The Henry Fownes course built in 1903 is heavy as Pittsburgh Steel. Geoff Ogilvy, a former US Open Champion, once said that playing Oakmont “was the most difficult gap you have ever played on every hole.”
The USGA does not have to do much to achieve what it always wants: the most difficult test in Golf.
Oakmont organizes the US Open for the 10th time on June 12-15, more than any other course in the 130-year history of the championship. There is a reason why it keeps going back.
“There are certain places in our game where you are 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,” said John Bodenhamer, the main championships of the USGA, in an interview with Golf Channel. “It was built for a US Open.”
Add to the hype are players who went to Oakmont in the weeks prior to the US Open and sharing stories about deep rough and greens, making it feel that they attract linoleum. There have been videos of golf balls in the thick grass with just a few wells visible.
“I would say all the rumors and everything is on point,” said Justin Thomas, who visited Oakmont before he went to the monument.
Xander Schauffele finished only once from the top 10 in his eight US OpenSs. He still has to see Oakmont, but the reputation is enough for him to realize what he can expect.
“It’s just a battle. It’s real,” said Schauffele. “It can be extremely worthwhile if you are able to stay disciplined for 72 holes. The cliché statement of Golf is a marathon – it seems the most real feeling when you play on us. You just have the feeling that you wage war every day.”
Bryson Deschambeau is the defending champion, one of the eight players who broke par in Pinehurst no. 2 last year. That was a strict test of another variety, more about dome -shaped Donald Ross Greens and Fairways framed by sand dunes.
Before that, the experiment in Los Angeles Country Club, where Schauffele and Rickie Fowler opened us, each with a record 62 about 10 minutes apart.
In the eyes of Jordan Spieth is what Oakmont offers an opportunity to reset what the US is all about – narrow fairways, deep rough, cool greens. And in Oakmont, the famous “church bench” bunkers who separate the third and fourth fairways.
“If you miss the fairway, it is really difficult to make par. And if you hit the fairway, the work is not done,” Spieth said. “I think it’s a good test. The way I have always talked about Oakmont is the USGA needs a year to be able to forget people to forget something that they did in another. It sets the slate straight ahead.
“It’s the easiest open to the USGA,” he said. “They don’t have to do much about it, and it really makes up for the tournament.”
Scheffler made his US open debut as a 19-year-old at the University of Texas. He shot 69 in the first round and then missed the cut. Now he is a triple big champion, fresh of his five-shot victory in the PGA championship. Perhaps telling more was a four-shot victory in the monument, where players felt that they received a preview of the US Open with rough so thick that it could only go back to the fairway a challenge.
The freak injury Scheffler suffered – he tried to cut Ravioli with a wine glass on Christmas Day and walked through his right hand – perhaps put him back at the beginning of the year. He is now in full swing and wins three of his last four tournaments.
Not being overlooked is Deschambeau. Despite all the talk about the toughness of Oakmont, Winged Foot in New York is another brutal of a US Open test. That is where Deschambeau struck the T -shirt and wedges flowed out of the rough. He set the scoring record on Winged Foot (274) and won six.
Now he is the defensive US Open Champion and ready to match muscles with Oakmont. Only five players in the last 100 years have won the US Open Back-to-Back.
“I think I always pursue the history. Everyone is. We all try to achieve performance that have not been done for a long time, and back-to-back would be great. Three in a row would be an even better performance,” said Decchambeau. “So it’s in mind.
“How do I prepare? Just as I would do another tournament. Just as I did last year with Pinehurst, aimed at performing the right shots, touching the fairways, not three-sample-that is a big deal and keep it out of rough. I try to keep it simple.”
That is a recipe for a traditional US open. Avoiding three puts is always mentioned at Augusta National. That is shown in Oakmont because of his reputation for fast greens. Sam Snead once said famous (and jokes) about Oakmont: “I put a cent to mark my ball and the dime slides away.”
You only have to look back on the last time in Oakmont, in 2016, when the ball of Dustin Johnson moved so lightly as he stepped in for a par putt on the fifth hole. He didn’t think he made sure it moved. The USGA only told him in the 12th tee that it was assessed, and he was punished after the fourth round was over. By that time he didn’t care – he won with three shots instead of four.
Johnson is bound by the World Golf Hall of Fame, and so is practically every American open champion in Oakmont, proof of status.
Mist is Phil Mickelson, who takes Oakmont for the fourth time. He missed the last two times in Oakmont and shot 297 – 18 shots behind – in 1994. The US Open remains the only major who keeps him out of the career Grand Slam, and this will probably be his last.
Mickelson won the 2021 PGA championship at the age of 50. His five -year exemption for the US Open runs this year and he already accepted one special exemption (which he did not need when he won the PGA). Only once did the USGA award a second exemption to a player who had not won the US Open. That was the late Seve Ballesteros.
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