Oakmont rough living up to reputation ahead of 125th U.S. Open next week

When defending U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau played a practice round recently at historic Oakmont Country Club, he was stunned by the conditions of the thick, long rough.

In a YouTube video, DeChambeau said, “This is the hardest this golf course could ever play right now.”

DeChambeau found out first-hand how hard one of the toughest courses in golf can play.

Oakmont is known for its lightning-fast greens — running 14.5 on the stimpmeter — and crazy bunkers that have given golfers nightmares in the nine previous U.S. Opens.

The 125th U.S. Open is at Oakmont beginning June 12 — the record 10th time it has hosted the event — and the field of 156 golfers will find out how important it is to avoid the rough.

The USGA likes to test the players’ abilities with different obstacles such as deep, thick rough. The depth will vary from 4 inches to 5¹⁄₂ inches.

The rough at Oakmont is a different animal. Local amateur Sean Knapp said the course can be vicious like a lion or a tiger.

“It is penal right now,” Knapp said. “The length of the rough varies from time to time. Right now, it is thick.

“With a major being played there, if you miss the fairway, this is probably the thickest I have seen.”

Knapp recalls the USGA cut the rough back twice during U.S. Open week in 2016.

“What the players see Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday might not be the same they will see Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday,” Knapp said. “The USGA can make it as tough as they want or as playable as they want. It depends how things go.”

Golfers will encounter different challenges even if they can find their ball in the tall grass. DeChambeau described on video his lie in deep rough behind the green on No. 6 as, “That is cooked beyond belief. That’s more than half-baked there. That’s burnt to a crisp.’”

He flopped his the shot on the green.

Some lies will be playable, while others will force the golfer to simply advance the ball to the fairway with a wedge.

“This is a great time of the year to grow rough in Western Pa.,” USGA senior director of championship agronomy Darin Bevard said. “When we set up for a championship, there should be a premium on accuracy, and we know we need to have thick, healthy rough, and Mike McCormick (Oakmont grounds superintendent) has done his magic out there.

“It is just a good time of year. They’ve had a lot of rain out there, now they’re getting the heat. They do a tremendous job of taking care of it.”

The first cut of the rough is 1 1/2 inches.

“They cut the rough Monday a four-and-a-quarter,” Bevard said. “Will they cut it again? Oh yes. We are having all kinds of discussions right now about what height we’d like to cut it at, when we would like to cut it the last time before the start of the championship.

“We will continue to have conversations as the championship progresses. Do we need to cut it again? We will watch the play. So it’s not like we just make the decision in a vacuum and say, ‘Oh, it’s going to be 5 inches.’

“The USGA looks at a lot of factors. They will watch during the practice round. They will watch players play out of it, and see, you know, how, how far they can advance the ball.

“A player can get a lot of different lies. How many times does a player get a poor lie? Man, that’s a tough one. Or you get a difficult, but someone like Rory McIlroy can get a club on that and advance it pretty damn far with not a lot of spin.

“We throw balls in the rough. Look at how many of them sit down. How many of them, you know, are sitting up? I can pretty much guarantee you that the rough is going to be between 4 1/2 and 5 1/2 inches for the U.S. Open.”

So what makes Oakmont’s rough different from others?

“It is just really well maintained, but there is not a lot of rye grass in it,” Bevard said. “So the ball sits down in it.

“But, for example, at Pebble Beach or somewhere out on the West Coast, it can be a little more difficult to grow rough if you don’t get rain and they are relying so solely on irrigation. So you can get tall rough, but it will not be quite as thick as what you see here. But here it is well maintained, and Mike McCormick is the secret sauce.”