Oakmont has hosted more US Open championships than any other course, so it’s hardly surprising that its results throw up some interesting statistics. Less expected is how little attention seems to be paid to one of these stats.
In the build up to the Championship this year, the tenth to be played there, speculation about likely winners focused mostly on the big names who already had two majors, or in some instances more than two, under their belt. This overlooked the fact that, of the nine previous winners at Oakmont, seven of them had never won a major before.
Given its well justified reputation as an extremely challenging course this is odd. On the face of it you’d expect a tough course to be more likely, not less, to produce a winner who’d already overcome the extra pressure associated with capturing their first major scalp.
This year, despite the presence of twelve former major winners in this year’s field, JJ Spaun, a thirty four year old outsider who’d only played in eight majors before and never made the top twenty, kept his nerve to finish very strongly on the final afternoon in testing weather conditions.
If past form is anything to go by, he may now have more to look forward to because the victories of the seven previous first time major winners at Oakmont weren’t a flash in the pan never to be repeated. Between them those seven went on to amass a total of of 32 majors. Only Sam Parks, who in 1935 was alone among the whole field in breaking 300, failed to pick up a second one.
Another interesting Oakmont stat concerns Bobby Jones who arrived in 1927 with two US Opens already under his belt and the memory of winning the US Amateur there in 1925. He proceeded to record his worst ever result in a US Open. Not that his worst would have been a disaster for ordinary mortals because he finished tied eleventh. This was the only time Jones failed to make the top ten in the US Open.
Questioned about the course afterwards he declared it was “the best on which either [the Open or Amateur] has been played”, adding “I was afraid any criticism I might make would be interpreted as ill-natured grumbling because I’d made such a miserable showing.” Wyndham Clark might bear Jones’s reaction to a disappointing round in mind next time he’s tempted to trash a historic locker room.
In 1953 Ben Hogan was as diplomatic as Jones. Despite being a three times US Open champion, he had to go through a two round qualifying stage like everyone else. Back then the final two rounds were played on the same day so winning required six rounds in five days, tough for a forty year old who nearly died in a car crash four years earlier. His only comment was that he was “dead tired” before the championship began.
Hogan’s strategy for Oakmont included deliberately playing his second shot over the green at the first and tenth holes, to avoid having to chip or putt down from in front of or above the flag. This revealed more imagination than that possessed by one of today’s banal but inexplicably popular tv commentators who could think of nothing better to say than that he disliked greens which slope away from fairways.
Back to the present. It was refreshing at last to see top players facing five inch rough only a few feet from the edge of the fairway. Surely it’s right that a wayward tee shot should sometimes, or even often, make reaching the green in two impossible. At far too many courses what passes for rough still allows players to hit a mid iron.
While the insanity of ever longer hitting persists unchecked, for the benefit of equipment manufacturers and nobody else, this means golfers can bang their drives as hard as possible off every tee without fear of the consequences at most Tour events. Not at Oakmont, however, and full marks to the USGA and the Club for setting it up the way they did and also for keeping the famous pews.
The weather both beforehand and on the last afternoon did few favours, but the climax was as exciting and memorable as anyone could wish. Oakmont will retain its status as the the course which hosts the largest number of US Opens since it’s already been allocated three more before 2050.
For various reasons there weren’t many opportunities for clever bump and run approach shots at Oakmont. Watching the Amateur Championship at Royal St George’s this week has been a reminder that it’s a choice which many brilliant long hitting young players seem reluctant to make. I suspect this is because it’s a skill which really only comes into its own on links.
I saw one competitor in the last sixteen whose tee shot at the short sixth was barely a yard from the edge of the putting surface on a closely mown area a dozen yards from the pin. He reached for his sand iron, knocked the ball rather clumsily eight feet past the hole, missed the putt and lost the hole to a par. A gentle bump and run, maybe a seven iron, would have removed all risk and almost certainly at worst left him with a stone dead three.
Be all that as it may, the final was a closely fought battle eventually won with a birdie on the 36th hole by Ethan Fang, currently ranked as the seventh best amateur in the world, who became the 23rd winner from the US. His opponent, Ireland’s Gavin Tiernan, is a mere 1,333 places below him in the World Amateur Golf Rankings. On yesterday’s showing that gap should be a lot smaller.
The near drought of the last few weeks in southern England meant the rough was less thick than normal at this time of year and only the very wildest shots left the players facing shots which almost every competitor at Oakmont encountered. Nevertheless the course was beautifully presented and a treat for players and spectators alike.
Meanwhile in Texas Australian Minjee Lee looks well placed after three rounds in the Women’s PGA Championship to add another major to her tally. With all this high class golf taking place on both sides of the pond there’s little space to report on another serious contest, the annual match between Sunningdale GC and the UK Parliamentary Golfing Society.
Suffice it to say although that a majority of only two would justify a recount in a parliamentary election it was a comfortable win for the club, and also for the heather which my team visited too frequently for comfort. It’s clear that with the Seniors Open being played there next month the Old Course will be set up to challenge the heroes of yesteryear.
All of the above suggests that golf, in its many very different forms, is in pretty good shape. That’s more than can be said of the world in general. Maybe those of us who love the great game can find a little solace by thinking of golf more often and encouraging others to do so.
ENDS