By David Rogers. PLUM, Pa. — I once played the Red Tail golf course near Mountain City, Tenn., when it was still an 18-hole course with much of it through mountainous woods. That front nine up and down the mountains and through the trees made it one of the most scenic and enjoyable, if very challenging, courses anyone could play.
There was one hole where the cup seemed to be on top of a church steeple. The surrounding slopes were fierce. I chipped on from just off the green and my ball landed very softly, less than six inches from the hole.
But my adventure was just beginning. The ball didn’t stop, but kept rolling and rolling and rolling down the back slope, off the green and some 40 feet into the woods onto what I recall was bed of leaves and pine straw. My attempts to get back up and onto the green — and into the hole — were similarly futile. I finally gave up in frustration, “giving” myself a 10 on the par-4.
If only I could…
Memories of my Red Tail experience came flooding back while reading about the 2025 U.S. Open to be played this weekend by the world’s best golfers at Oakmont Country Club, on the northeastern outskirts of Pittsburgh, Pa. The course has played host to the U.S. Open more than any other golf course. This weekend will be the tenth time for what many in the golf community describe as one of the most difficult golf courses, anywhere.
It is challenging, in part, because of the extremely fast, undulating greens, often with steep slopes. Then there are the narrow fairways – and the deep rough should your ball not fly true. Not just the deep rough, but strategically placed bunkers and ditches punish golfers for errant shots, too. On holes No. 3 and No. 4, a defining feature of the Oakmont experience is the “Church Pews” bunker between the two fairways. As sand traps go, the Church Pew is quite large, nearly two-thirds of an acre, with a series of 13 grassy ridges across the expanse of white sand, according to Golfweek magazine’s account.
Oakmont also enjoyed its share of controversy over the years, most notably because some 10,000 trees were removed between 2000 and 2016.
Without knowing the course’s origins and history, those with an ecological bent might be aghast at removing so many trees. The course was established 122 years ago, in 1903, designed by Henry Fownes on old, open farmland (hardly a tree to be found).
According to the U.S. Golf Association website’s description of Oakmont, Fownes intended for his course to be “links-style,” such as we see in Scotland and England. They are open courses, almost devoid of trees. Open farmland with little in the way of water hazards was a good starting point for a links-style course in 1903.
“An open course does not mean it is an easy course,” said Blowing Rock-based golf course architect Ron Cutlip in a conversation with High Country Sports.
Nor was it Fownes’ intention for Oakmont to be easy. He was quoted as once saying, “A shot poorly played should be a shot irrevocably lost.”
In fact, reports the USGA, Fownes had more than 330 bunkers populating the near-treeless Oakmont course at one point. Today, it has “only” 175. Without question, Oakmont is a course aiming to identify a world champion golfer.
For an ecologically sensitive American society, though, the relative absence of trees on the open links layout was problematic. So was noise from the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which divided the course almost evenly, seven holes on one side and 11 holes on the other. And when a young Johnny Miller blistered the course by shooting a 63 in the fourth round of the U.S. Open in 1973, any movement toward planting more trees gained traction. Trees are “pretty.” Trees create a sound buffer for the noise coming from the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Trees can make the course even more difficult — at least that was the thinking at the time.
In 1953, sportswriter and golf critic Herbert Warren Wind of The New Yorker magazine opined that Oakmont was, “… an ugly brute of a course.” According to the USGA, that description prompted the club’s post-Fownes hierarchy to start planting more trees. In Oakmont’s published history, after Wind’s critique it was decided to “beautify” the course with some 5,000 trees, planted up and down the fairways and behind the greens. With even more trees added over the years that followed, the course was no longer the original links-style course, but evolving to what is more commonly known as an American-style “parkland” course.
Unintended Consequences
But by the late 1990s, those now mature trees were overgrown, including some tree roots’ intrusion into the fairways as well as overhanging canopies that didn’t allow fairway grass to get sufficient sunlight, leaving fairways bare in places.
So, beginning near the turn of the 21st century, the Oakmont hierarchy started removing trees. By 2016, between 10,000 to 15,000 trees were removed, according to USGA reports.
In a preview of the 2025 U.S. Open found on YouTube, longtime Oakmont golf professional Bob Ford recalled that the first 1,000 trees were removed in the dead of night, before 4:30 a.m., with even the sawdust removed by morning. Apparently, the club hierarchy knew that removing the trees would create a bit of backlash among some country club members, but they wanted to get the process started toward returning the course to its original, links-style design, which is where it is today.
“Trees can be an important feature of a golf course design,” Cutlip explained, “but they have to be introduced correctly. You can’t plant them willy-nilly just to beautify a course, which is apparently what happened at Oakmont.
“On its own, a golf course design can be made easy or extremely difficult, with or without trees,” said Cutlip. “And the challenges of the original links-style design in 1903 really underline that thought. With its steep, undulating greens, penal bunkers and ditches, narrow fairways and deep rough, Oakmont was a links-style course to challenge the very best even before they planted the trees.”
As a golf course architect who likes to work with a property’s history, as well as its natural contours, Cutlip applauds Oakmont’s restoring the course to its original design.
“Just like every parkland style course can’t be easily or effectively transformed into an open links-style course, you can’t really convert a links-style course into a parkland course without changing the very nature and personality of the golfing platform,” said Cutlip.
Let the fun begin
Local knowledge of a course offers any player a leg up on the competition at just about every golf course, but that will be especially true in the 2025 U.S. Open.
“With Oakmont’s many quirks, I suggest that by Sunday the real heroes may be the caddies of the guys at the top of the leaderboard. And that might even be one of Oakmont’s own caddies carrying the bag for one or more of the pros,” said Cutlip. “The greens are likely to be cut to something like 3/32 of an inch. On a relatively dry day, they will be fast and unforgiving. The caddie can tell the player how much to slow down his putts and where to put his approach shots from different parts of the fairway, even how much backspin to put on the ball. For a well-placed approach shot, you want the ball to stop when it hits the ground. You don’t want it to keep rolling on those greens because they just might roll the golfer out of contention.”
Just like my soft chip shot at Red Tail, the ball could keep rolling and rolling and rolling. If there is a silver lining, at least on an Oakmont course with the trees removed the ball is less likely to stop in the woods.
