Oakmont Country Club

The property is crossed by the Pennsylvania Turnpike and a railroad corridor. Within that divided landscape, tilted greens and sand hazards make accuracy consequential. The Church Pews sits between the third and fourth holes, confronting players on consecutive holes from opposite sides of the same bunker.²³

Oakmont’s appearance nevertheless changed markedly. The Club’s history records extensive tree planting after the 1953 U.S. Open, followed decades later by removal as overgrowth and turf problems developed. The result recovered the broad, open views of the earlier design without requiring a wholly new routing.¹²

The greens explain how even an exceptional round can contain a mistake. At the eighth in the 1973 U.S. Open, Johnny Miller three-putted for his only bogey on the way to 63. The opening green supplies a different problem, sloping away from the approach so that reaching the surface does not guarantee an easy next stroke.³