Oakmont Country Club has provided the stage for major championship breakthroughs

Oakmont Country Club finally had done it: exposed Angel Cabrera as a pretender rather than a contender.

Cabrera held the halfway lead during the 2007 U.S. Open but shot 76 in the third round, and, suddenly, his chances of winning a major championship seemed slim. Not that anyone in attendance or watching on TV was surprised.

Here was a guy who, at 37, had never even won a PGA Tour event, let alone a major. There was no way this relative unknown from Argentina was going to stand up to the monster that is Oakmont.

And besides the course itself, he was facing some stiff opposition. He was four shots behind leader Aaron Baddeley going into the final round, Tiger Woods and Justin Rose were among those ahead of him, and Steve Stricker and Jim Furyk were contending as well.

Cabrera probably didn’t realize it at the time, but he had history on his side. For all of its notoriety as one of the toughest golf courses in the world, Oakmont Country Club doesn’t always favor the most accomplished or well-known players.

Cabrera sank a birdie putt on the 15th hole — he told TribLive in an email that was the moment he felt he could win — and despite bogeys on Nos. 16 and 17, his final-round score of 69 and tournament total of 5-over-par were good enough to win.

Woods stayed stuck in neutral in the final round, and he missed a birdie putt on the 72nd hole that would have forced an 18-hole playoff the next day. Furyk, meanwhile, took a critical bogey on No. 17 that kept him out of a playoff.

“The final score was against them,” Cabrera said, referring to Woods and Furyk, “but I beat every player who was there that week.”

And by doing so, Cabrera became part of the rule, rather than the exception, at Oakmont. His victory meant six of the eight men who won the U.S. Open there did so for their first major title. Dustin Johnson made it seven of nine in 2016, joining Tommy Armour, Sam Parks Jr., Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Ernie Els and Cabrera.

Further, for Parks Jr., Nicklaus, Els and Cabrera, it was their first PGA Tour win of any kind.

A course as diabolical as Oakmont seems like an odd place for a player to make his major championship breakthrough, let alone win his first PGA Tour title. And yet, the evidence doesn’t lie.

“It’s a little strange,” Cabrera said, “but on courses as difficult as Oakmont, the players are very evenly matched.”

As further evidence, consider that several of Oakmont’s first-time major winners held off previous major champions:

• Armour, who defeated Harry Cooper in a playoff in 1927, finished 72 holes a stroke ahead of legendary Gene Sarazen, who had won three majors previously.

• Parks Jr. bested Walter Hagen by three strokes in 1935. Hagen already had won all of his 11 majors, including two U.S. Opens.

• Nicklaus famously defeated hometown favorite Arnold Palmer in 1962. Palmer was the owner of five major titles at the time, including that year’s Masters.

• Miller’s iconic 63 helped him blow past Palmer, Nicklaus and then-four-time major champion Lee Trevino in 1973’s final round.

• Woods was the owner of 12 major titles when Cabrera surged ahead of him in ’07.

So perhaps Oakmont doesn’t reinforce the identities of the best players in golf. Rather, it reveals them.

“The cream truly rises to the top here at Oakmont,” said John Bodenhamer, the USGA’s chief championships officer.

Oakmont’s legacy of producing unlikely champions — or at least those who seemed unlikely at the time — bodes well for those still in search of a signature win. Someone such as Denny McCarthy.

The 32-year-old who ranks No. 42 in the world remains without a PGA Tour win, though he has been close on a couple of occasions. He lost in a playoff against Viktor Hovland at the 2023 Memorial and in another playoff to Akshay Bhatia at last year’s Texas Open.

McCarthy was a first-year pro when he played at the 2016 U.S. Open at Oakmont. He missed the cut and said “that place kind of ate my lunch,” yet he arrives at the U.S. Open this year undaunted and ready to join the likes of Parks Jr. and Miller.

“Just how I think and my mindset and how I have improved mentally have come a long way,” McCarthy told TribLive at the Memorial tournament. “Having a good head on your shoulders, letting things roll off your back is key … in a major like Oakmont.”

Count Ryan Gerard among the group as well. Gerard, 25 and in just his third season as a pro, has played in only three majors, but he finished tied for eighth at the PGA Championship in May. He recognizes he has as good a chance as anyone at Oakmont if he has his mind and game right.

“It’s a patience test,” he said during the Memorial. “You’re going to have a lot of weird things happen, a lot of bad golf shots happen, but the guy that keeps his head on straight, makes those key shots, those key putts when he needs them and tries to stay positive throughout the week, that’s the guy who’s going to be near the top of the leaderboard at the end of this tournament.”

Wait. Denny McCarthy? Ryan Gerard? Who are they?

A lot of people asked the same question about Ernie Els and Angel Cabrera, too.