U.S. Open 2025: The Ultimate Oakmont Expert Guide & Course Preview

Oakmont is a place where history looms large and birdies are hard-won. Often revered as one of the most challenging tests in championship golf, it has a reputation worthy of hosting its record 10th U.S. Open this week. To learn what truly sets Oakmont apart, there are no better sources than the PGA Professionals who know it best: Devin Gee, current PGA Head Professional, and his predecessor PGA Life Member Bob Ford, a legend in the game who served as head professional at both Oakmont and esteemed Seminole in South Florida. Their collective insights offer a rare glimpse into what’s allowed Oakmont to endure – and why it humbles even the greatest players in the world. Gee likes to say Oakmont’s the hardest course you’ll ever play with a single golf ball. That line might get a chuckle out of the members or the pros who’ve been through the wringer here, but there’s truth to it. You won’t often be searching for your ball – although the 5-inch U.S. Open rough could claim a few stragglers – but you will be grinding for pars. What separates it from almost any other course in the Americas is that it asks the right questions on every single shot – and punishes anything less than a precise answer. It starts off the tee. Oakmont is a driving course, plain and simple.  “Live in the fairway. You have to be a great driver of the golf ball and dissect the course off the tee,” says Ford. “Open the yardage book, find the 300 mark in the middle of the fairway and that's your target – and many times you don't want to go farther than that. Charting out your drives is a good start.” The next phase of the challenge: The greens. They have been called historic, infamous, diabolical, brutal, however you want to describe them – but the truth is, you don’t get a shot at them unless you’re coming in from the short grass. Out of the rough? Forget it. You’re reacting instead of executing. “It's brutal (the rough),” Ford continues. “It's been that way for most of our championships and everybody always complains about it, except for the winners. The winners don't complain too much.” He remembers when Seve Ballesteros finished T4 in 1983 while only hitting two drivers each day (he was tied with Calvin Peete, the most accurate driver in PGA TOUR history). Larry Nelson, that year’s winner, hit 4-wood off the tee and on the approach to make par on the 72nd hole and claim victory by a single stroke.  “While the course may have gotten a little longer over the years, the strategy remains the same. You need to be in the fairways,” says Ford. “The bomb and gouge is not going to happen at Oakmont. That guy will not be around for the weekend.” The subject of distance and length is an interesting one when you consider Oakmont’s 100-plus year history. In an era where there’s much chatter about rollbacks and the modern power game is making traditional courses obsolete, Oakmont has endured the test of time across every generation. How? Founded in 1904 by steel mogul Henry C. Fownes and his son William (W.C.), their objective was to build the most difficult golf course in the country and the greatest championship test the world had ever seen. In fact, upon its opening, Oakmont was a par 80 golf course. That’s not a typo: Par 80!  “W.C. was the USGA President in the 1920s and heavily involved on the equipment standards committee,” Gee explains. “He was the driving force in a 1930 golf ball rollback that eventually resulted in the same standards for diameter and weight we still use today. As an accomplished player (he won the 1910 U.S. Amateur), he had the foresight to know that golf equipment would evolve and distance alongside it. "He made a course that pushed the boundaries of his present day and allowed Oakmont to stay relevant long into the future.” Through his historical research, Gee believes the first time significant yardage was added to Oakmont came in the early 2000s, prior to the 2007 U.S. Open. Since then, a few modest extensions were made for the 2016 and upcoming 2025 Opens.  “For the first 100 years, only 300-400 yards were added to the golf course,” he explains. “In the last 25 years, we’ve added as much length as they did over a century. That’s how the course has continually challenged the game’s best – we haven’t really needed to add significant yardage. Just gradual increases over time.” And with the restoration in 2023, Gil Hanse added a mere 150-200 yards. Instead, he reintroduced some architectural wrinkles that made things even more interesting off the tee. No. 2, for instance, what used to be a single pot bunker down the middle is now a real hazard again, something you have to respect. And No. 7, that’s a big one. Gil brought back a cross bunker that had disappeared over the years, and now it sits right in that 280–290 yard range. Players have a decision: challenge it and gain a better angle in – or play safely to the right and take a longer, tougher route to the green. It's the kind of decision that reveals something about who you are as a golfer. Which brings us to the approach shots. Yes, the greens are legendary – lightning-fast, sloping and complex – but the key is how your approach interacts with them. You have to think not just about your carry yardage, but how the ball will bounce and roll once it hits the green. And that’s where course knowledge and experience become so valuable. Take No. 1, for example. Even from the fairway, with a wedge or a short iron, you’re landing it on the front third of the green and trying to predict the bounce. If it’s firm? Good luck. Your ball might skip to the back and leave you staring at a 50-footer.  It’s one of the hardest opening holes in championship golf, and delivered 161 bogeys in the 2016 U.S. Open with a stroke average of 4.45. No. 12 may be the most severe green on the course. The front portion might look like a landing zone, but it funnels everything long. If you’re even slightly off on your distance or trajectory, you’re suddenly dealing with a difficult two-putt. “Lew Worsham, who was my predecessor, had a famous line: ‘Oakmont is the only place I think about my second putt before I hit my first,’” quips Ford. “It’s not bad to go in with that attitude. The greens are so fast, the ball just continues to creep. You really must have the right speed and sometimes accept that a two-putt is the best foreseeable outcome.” And No. 10 – this one’s fun to watch but a beast to play. Hanse reintroduced a “ditch” that stretches across the fairway to add even more drama to what’s already one of the narrowest landing areas on the course. The green slopes hard from front to back and right to left. On paper, you have a short iron approach. But on the ground, you might be aiming 40 feet right of a flagstick, hoping to let the contour bring it around. That’s the thing with Oakmont. It’s not about tricks. It’s about honesty. The greens are visible, the targets are clear but the subtleties – those undulations, those shifts in slope – are what make the difference between a par and a double. The course doesn’t hide anything, but it also doesn’t forgive. And yes, you’ll hear about No. 8 this week. It’s been 300 yards for years, but anytime tour pros remove headcovers on a par 3, it’s going to get attention. However, as Ford so eloquently put it: “Don’t let the yardage scare you, boys.” The green is large, it’s among the flattest surfaces on the course and there’s an inviting space to roll it up." That’s Oakmont’s brilliance. It’s not trying to be trendy. It’s just doing what it’s always done: asking you, over and over again, “Can you hit the shot?” To wrap things up with Gee and Ford, we asked them the same question: If you could play three holes at even par for the week and pick up shots on the field, which three would that be? “Firstly, I believe a total score of even par puts you in the hunt and would be something to be proud of,” starts Gee. “But I think Nos. 3, 7 and 15 in particular stand out. Partly because of their length, they’re among the longest par 4s on the course, but also because of the green complexes. It doesn’t take a lot to get out of position on either of the three, and when you do it’s difficult to make it up.” “Devin picked some good ones, but I’m going to go with 1, 10 and 18,” says Ford. “Historically, over the last five or six Opens I’ve been around for, 1 and 10 are the two toughest holes on the golf course – and 18 is not far behind. Add in Devin’s choices, if you play those six holes well for the week, you should have a chance come Sunday.”