Oakmont has already humbled the world’s best golfers at the US Open. It could be about to get even tougher

By Kyle Feldscher, CNN

Oakmont, Pennsylvania (CNN) — Scottie Scheffler has been bending courses to his will in 2025. The No. 1 golfer in the world looked unstoppable only two weeks ago at the Memorial Tournament that he won by four strokes at the Muirfield Village Golf Club in Ohio.

But the course at Oakmont Country Club outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, isn’t just any course. Oakmont is diabolical.

The rough is deep enough that it covers your shoes. It’s thick enough that the PGA officials tasked with finding wayward shots look like someone trying to find a contact lens in a crowded room. The fairways are pencil-thin and, when you’re lucky enough to find one, they slope toward bunkers that drop straight into the earth. Those bunkers are so deep that they appear to swallow players whole, and they guard the greens at Oakmont like the implacable Royal Guard at Buckingham Palace.

When all those obstacles are finally vanquished, players might hope to find some respite on the greens. Instead, they are essentially putting on sheets of glass that have enough bumps, slopes, twists and turns that all they’re missing is a windmill or an open-mouthed clown.

Scheffler felt the fury of Oakmont on the monster 618-yard, par-5 12th hole when he had a chance to chip out of the rough near the green and set up a rare birdie opportunity. Unfortunately for the defending PGA Championship winner, this course has a way of making even the best player in the world look like a high handicap weekend warrior: he scalded his flop shot and the lightning-fast greens gave him no quarter as the ball rocketed across the green and into the thick rough on the opposite side.

Such is Scheffler’s ability that he managed to get up and down for par. But the frustration was beginning to show. A bogey on 13 made his jaw drop. An approach shot on 14 that spun away from the hole left him slamming his club into the fairway, yelling at himself. Another bogey came on 15 after he missed a six-footer on another wicked green.

“The golf course is just challenging,” he said afterward.

“The greens just got challenging out there late in the day,” he added. “There’s so much speed and so much pitch and then with the amount of guys going through on these greens, they can get a little bit bumpy. But you know that’s going to be part of the challenge going in. You’ve got to do your best to stay under the hole and stay patient.”

It was a brutal day for Scheffler and so many others on the course. And the worst news for the 156 players in the field? It might get even tougher.

“It just puts so much pressure on every single part of your game constantly, whether it’s off the tee, whether it’s putting green, whether it’s around the greens or it’s the iron shots into the green,” said Thomas Detry, who ended the day with a 1-under 69. “Luckily, the wind wasn’t too much up today, but it could be a bloodbath out here if it suddenly starts to blow.”

Friday’s forecast for Oakmont, Pennsylvania, includes the possibility of rain showers and thunderstorms. Saturday and Sunday’s forecast looks much the same. If the rough gets wet and the wind picks up, then this monster of a course might be eating the field for dinner.

Oakmont giveth and Oakmont taketh (much more) away

The course gave up a couple of incredible shots – Shane Lowry’s eagle on the No. 3 and Patrick Reed’s 286-yard albatross on No. 4 to name the most notable – but for every highlight reel moment, there were innumerable stolen strokes that might prove costly on Sunday.

There was Rory McIlroy chunking it only a few yards out of catastrophic conditions on two straight shots on No. 4. There was Viktor Hovland hacking his second shot only 97 yards as the rough reached up and grabbed his clubhead on No. 15, leading to a killer bogey. There was Bryson DeChambeau’s approach shot on No. 12 that bounced three times and then rolled all the way off the back of the green.

And, as the golden hour glow settled in on the course, there was Tony Finau finding a greenside sprinkler head that sent his ball flying into the grandstands and only just missing a spectator who never saw it coming.

There were many more. DeChambeau said the course is not giving an inch.

“The rough is incredibly penalizing. Even for a guy like me, I can’t get out of it some of the times, depending on the lie. It was tough. It was a brutal test of golf,” he said.

Robert MacIntyre, who shot an even-par 70 on Thursday, said the course is in his head even if he was very pleased with his round.

“That’s up there, up there in the top 10 of any rounds that I’ve played. It is just so hard – honestly, every shot you’re on a knife edge,” he said. “If you miss it – even if you miss the green, you miss it by too much, you then try to play an eight-yard pitch over the rough onto a green that’s brick-hard running away from you.”

‘This course is too hard for me’

Playing Oakmont well doesn’t exactly mean that one felt confident going into the day.

For JJ Spaun, who lead the tournament after the opening round, the best move was to just lean into the anxiety.

“I was definitely kind of nervous because I didn’t – all you’ve been hearing is how hard this place is, and it’s hard to not hear the noise and see what’s on social media and Twitter and all this stuff,” he said. “You’re just kind of only hearing about how hard this course is.”

“I was actually pretty nervous. But I actually tried to harness that, the nerves, the anxiety, because it kind of heightens my focus, makes me swing better, I guess. I don’t know, I kind of get more in the zone, whereas if I don’t have any worry or if I’m not in it mentally, it’s kind of just a lazy round or whatever out there.”

Kim Si-woo, who ended the day in third after shooting a 2-under par 68, admitted that he didn’t really know what he was doing out there.

“Honestly, I don’t even know what I’m doing on the course,” he told reporters. “Kind of hitting good but feel like this course is too hard for me. So, kind of like no expectation, but I played great today.”

Even an experienced major champion like Spain’s Jon Rahm, who finished the day tied for sixth after shooting a 1-under 69, felt like he had an accomplishment to celebrate by staying under par.

“I’m extremely happy. I played some incredible golf to shoot 1-under, which we don’t usually say, right?” he said.

Second round action gets underway early Friday morning as the field is set to be narrowed to the top 60 players who make the cut.

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