Oakmont Country Club holds up to reputation at 2025 U.S. Open

The 2025 U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club will certainly be remembered by golf fans for the thrilling finish, in addition to lengthy moments of pouring rain and frustrated stars dealing with lightning-quick greens, wicked rough and penalizing bunkers.

The members, however, will take pride in the course’s difficulty, yet again. The beast of Oakmont again showed its teeth with a scoring average of 74.18.

That’s up from 73.46 in 2016, when Dustin Johnson won with a score of 4-under-par.

Only champion J.J. Spaun (at 1-under) finished under par for the 2025 tournament.

There were 993 birdies overall, compared with 2,090 bogeys and 316 doubles. That’s exactly what Oakmont and USGA officials had in mind while preparing the course for the world’s best golfers.

“It’s tough. The conditions were extremely difficult,” said Sam Burns, who held the lead after the third round before shooting 8-over Sunday to finish tied for seventh at 4-over. “I didn’t have my best stuff today. Yeah, it was really difficult.”

Added Adam Scott, who shot 9-over Sunday to finish at 6-over for the tournament: “Look, it just wasn’t easy out there. All things being equal, it’s Sunday of the U.S. Open, one of the hardest setups, and the conditions were the hardest of the week. Thank God it wasn’t like this all week.”

Hastings earns top amateur status

While there was plenty of drama in the final outcome of the U.S. Open, there was none when it came to the event’s low amateur.

Justin Hastings, a native of the Cayman Islands who earned his way into the field by winning the Latin American Amateur Championship, was the only amateur to make the cut this week, so the title of low amateur was his.

Hastings finished the tournament at 15-over. After three consecutive rounds of 73, he stumbled slightly Sunday, finishing with a 76 in which he didn’t make a birdie.

Still, the less-than-stellar finish wasn’t enough to dampen his spirits.

“It was such a treat just to be able to play in the U.S. Open, and then let alone have the success to be able to call yourself low amateur, it’s something I’ll hold onto for the rest of my life,” Hastings said. “Today I played a very similar round to the ones I did the first three days and just had no luck on the putting green.”

Next up for Hastings will be the British Open, an honor that also came with winning the Latin American Amateur — along with the PGA Championship, where he missed the cut — then, he said, he will consider turning pro.

“Obviously, the easy answer is we want to get on the PGA Tour as soon as possible,” he said. “My coaches like to say that good golf takes care of all that, so we’re going to focus on playing as well as we can, and when we get opportunities the next few months, hopefully, we can take advantage of it.”

Oakmont tandem tees off

Oakmont director of golf Devin Gee played the role as marker again Sunday, and he had some familiar company.

Gee, who also put in 18 holes Saturday, played with Australian Cam Davis in the first pairing Sunday. Oakmont assistant pro Gavin Lennox joined Ryan Fox for his final round after Corey Conners of Canada had to withdraw because of a wrist injury.

“It’s (more) frustrating in the middle of the field to be a one-ball than it is at the start,” Fox said. “But I had a great marker from here, Gavin, who’s one of the assistant pros. We chatted all the way around.

“It was just a nice, leisurely stroll out there. … I enjoyed it out there. The fans are great. I got a few jokes about being a single and people coming out and going, ‘I’ll be your partner and go out and shoot 150.’ I’m sure that’s on the low side, too, for some of them, but it was nice out there.”

Oakmont’s McCormick honored

The USGA started its trophy presentation Sunday night by awarding Oakmont Country Club golf course superintendent Mike McCormick with the E.J. Marshall Platter, which honors quality in golf course management and recognizes superintendents who “demonstrate their expertise and maintain a seamless relationship with the USGA in preparing a course for a national championship.”

“There are a lot of curveballs that come along at a U.S. Open, including this year when the Pittsburgh area saw one of its rainiest springs ever, but Mike and his team have managed to handle everything with a great attitude,” said Darin Bevard, USGA’s senior director of championship agronomy. “As soon as we arrived on-site to begin preparations for the 2025 championship, we knew that Oakmont would be more than ready to test the greatest golfers in the world.”

McCormick oversaw a 2023 renovation of Oakmont, which included more than 24,000 square feet of green expansions, 330,000 square feet of bunker renovations and two acres of fairway expansion.

How they ranked

The 15th hole was the toughest of the final round, with a scoring average of 4.58. The par 4 played at 503 yards and yielded two birdies, 31 pars and 28 bogeys, as well as four doubles.

For the third straight day, the 17th played as the easiest hole with an average of 3.68 strokes. There were 27 birdies there on Sunday.