Lorne Rubenstein | |
The allure of Oakmont
June 13, 2007
 Photo: © Rick Stewart/Getty Images |
The 9th hole at Oakmont Country Club. |
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OAKMONT, Pa. -- Some clubs have it but most clubs don't. The Oakmont Country Club does, and we're not talking course difficulty here. We're talking atmosphere, feeling, mood.
You feel it as soon as you approach the club along Hulton Road, which winds along a slight slope past modest homes and a few lavish, older homes. But nothing shouts at the visitor who approaches Oakmont, which simply emerges out of the neighborhood, adjacent to the Presbyterian Senior Care home. It's part of the landscape, like Merion in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, which will host the 2013 U.S. Open.
Now, you might say that Augusta National is also part of the neighborhood, because it's right there on Washington Road. But you'd be wrong. Augusta National is hidden behind walls and fences. It opens to the world, in a sense, for one week a year. It's impossible to get even a glimpse of the place for 51 weeks a year.
This isn't to say that Oakmont is open to all, year-round. It's a private club, but at least the passerby doesn't feel cut off summarily from the place. That's a touch of class, and it's something that the clubs-even the most private clubs-somehow have. They're well integrated into the surrounding environment, notwithstanding the fact that they're private. It's not far-fetched to say that Oakmont and Merion thereby feel part of the larger public landscape.
Photo: © Rick Stewart/Getty Images | | Oakmont's famous Church Pew bunkers. |
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This feeling should be a part of the game everywhere. The Old Course in St. Andrews is often called the mother of all courses because of the influence it's had on design. It's not even a club as we think of a club on this side of the pond. It's a course, a public course, although most people know that the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews has its clubhouse there. The R&A is private, the course is public. It's the mother of the notion that golf is a welcoming game, not an exclusionary one.
Now, I realize this can sound crazy in the context of an Oakmont or Merion. But I maintain that these clubs feel special precisely because they are more attached than detached to their surroundings. I could argue the same point about Shinnecock Hills on Long Island, and, of course, about Bethpage Black there as well. The former is private, the latter is part of a state park, and it's public. Both have held recent U.S. Opens.
To me, the U.S. Open has so much going for it because it is, well, open, and the clubs the USGA chooses to host the championship have that feeling no matter how treacherous the courses are. Upcoming U.S. Opens will go to public courses such as Torrey Pines in La Jolla, California, near San Diego, and Harding Park in San Francisco. These clubs, too, are part of the fabric of life in their communities.
Photo: © Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images | | The scenic beauty of Pebble Beach. |
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This isn't to say that there's always a feeling of inclusion rather than exclusion at U.S. Open courses. Pebble Beach is a resort course, but it's tucked away along fancy, ritzy 17-Mile Drive. The green fee is in the area of $500. Sure, anybody willing to pay the fee can play there. But Pebble to me seems more like Augusta than a place that invites you in. You might go there once or twice in your life, but you're always aware that Pebble is a place apart, and not a part of golf life at large.
Oakmont, though, conveys a feeling that one finds at so many clubs in the U.S., local clubs that relish their history and that make a visitor feel good just to be there. Maybe it's because I enjoy the game's history that I feel a kinship with clubs that honor theirs.
When I arrived at Oakmont the other day I made a beeline for the clubhouse. I wanted to have a close look at the black and white photographs that the club has placed all through, and that illustrate its rich history. I ran into the architect Robert Trent Jones Jr., who came upon me while I was looking at a photo of a pensive Jack Nicklaus during the 1962 U.S. Open at Oakmont. Nicklaus won that championship.
"Great things have happened here," Jones said. The walls told the tale, or the tales.
A plaque on a wall along a set of stairs outlined the great furrow debate of the 1953 U.S. Open, when some players threatened to withdraw. The club wanted the bunkers to remain furrowed, so that they would pose a harsh challenge to the players who found them. The USGA didn't want the bunkers furrowed. A compromise was reached whereby two types of rakes were used. It's all there on the clubhouse wall.
Photo: © Rick Stewart/Getty Images | | The clubhouse at Oakmonth |
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As for the clubhouse itself, it seems to hang out over the first tee, the joint practice putting green and ninth green, and the final green. It too is part of the course, not placed somewhere to facilitate valet parking. Ditto for Merion's clubhouse, which is all but part of the first tee and fairway. These clubhouses project a seamlessness one feels at a majority of older clubs in Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales. The course flows out of the clubhouse. The clubhouse flows into the course.
In the end, I suppose I'm talking about unity. Oakmont has it, which is a reason to savor this U.S. Open. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get out of the media centre and back to the clubhouse and course. I crave the feeling out there. The feeling comes less and less often in these days of mega-resorts and corporate golf and clubs. Oakmont's different, in all the right ways.
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