If you miss the fairway, you’re struggling to get to the green because the bunkers are super deep and the rough is thick and the greens are insane slopey.
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Phil Mickelson took a look around the course at Oakmont Country Club, the venue for next week’s U.S. Open (June 13-19), and has come to the conclusion that it’s the “hardest golf course” he has ever played. Or is it such a singular, distinctive climate compared to its major brethren that it borders on aberrational?
“I think it’s the hardest golf course I’ve ever played, and because of that, I’m looking forward to this year’s Open”, said the six-times Open runner-up.
“I know that if you win a U.S. Open at Oakmont, you can go ahead and say that you’ve conquered the hardest test in all of golf”.
“The reason why I’m optimistic about Oakmont is that it doesn’t require me to hit a lot of drivers”, said Mickelson, who spent Monday and Tuesday playing Oakmont, before teeing up in this week’s St Jude Classic.
Day’s impressive victory run over the past 10 months includes his first major title at the PGA Championship last August, the Barclays and BMW Championship in last year’s USA tour playoffs and the World Golf Championships Match Play.
Argentina’s Angel Cabrera delivered a superb display of ball-striking to win the U.S. Open when it was last played at Oakmont in 2007, and yet he could manage only a five-over-par total of 285.
Jordan Spieth is the defending champion and will try to become the first back-to-back victor of the U.S. Open since Curtis Strange in 1989, four years before Spieth was born. “It’s normally the hardest U.S. Open, at least what history shows”, Spieth told reporters.
Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy, aged 22, confirmed his rich promise as a potential golfing great with a commanding eight-stroke victory in the 2011 U.S. Open at Congressional where he posted a tournament low of 16-under 268 for 72 holes. “I think that element really makes a golfer from a strategic standpoint have to commit to a shot”.
Cut: Top 60 players and ties.
In 1950, just 16 months after breaking his pelvis, a shoulder, a rib and an ankle in a vehicle accident that nearly killed him, Ben Hogan played through extreme pain and nausea to win his second U.S. Open in an 18-hole playoff with George Fazio and Lloyd Mangrum at Merion.
Northern Irish world number three Rory McIlroy, the 2011 U.S. Open champion at Congressional, has been paired with Masters victor Danny Willett of England and fifth-ranked American Rickie Fowler.
“His record in the U.S. Open is incredibly impressive”.
“My memories are just how hard it was”, Geoff Ogilvy said. You’ve got to keep your head on, more than anything else, because it just beats you over the head.
The course: Oakmont was designed in 1903 by Henry C. Fownes, a steel magnate and accomplished amateur golfer. Oh, and the par-3 eighth is likely to measure around 300 yards.
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Davis said there were no major changes from the 2007 U.S. Open. The USGA didn’t do much to get it ready because it didn’t need to.
