Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Larry Nelson, Ernie Els, Angel Cabrera, Dustin Johnson. They say a great testament to a golf course is its winners list and that’s quite a US Open roll of honour.
Add to that the runner-up finishes of Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer and Tiger Woods on top of other major victories for Bobby Jones, Gene Sarazen and Snead it’s easy to see why Oakmont is the most popular US Open course on the USGA rota – as its tenth edition begins today – while it has hosted six US Amateurs, three PGA Championships and two US Women’s Opens.
This is big boy golf, it will separate the men from the boys. Once play gets underway in the late morning Irish time there is no hiding place.
No duds allowed, it is not possible to cheat Oakmont and the above winners list proves that the cream will eventually come to the top.
Shane Lowry returns to Oakmont, nine years on from his first major heartbreak, as one of golf’s top dogs. The world number twelve is fit to rival world number one Scottie Scheffler from tee to green and it’s only been a misbehaving putter that has left him outside of the winners circle.
Of the three players to finish in red figures behind Dustin Johnson in 2016 Lowry was one of them having lost a four-shot 54 hole lead. He said he would learn from it and he did, winning the 2019 Open Championship.
Patience is a virtue and never were words more prescient when it comes to US Open tests and this brute of an examination at Oakmont.
Lowry has cut a frustrated figure at the best of times this season but he insists that edge and tendency to run hot under the collar has got him to where he is today so he will have to use that in his favour at Oakmont.
“I’m hard on myself because I want it so much because, like I say, I put so much into it, and I know what [winning] tastes like. You just want it again, but, you know, that’s the way I’ve been my whole career. I’ve been out here quite a long time now. I don’t think I’m changing anytime soon.”
Has there ever been a more hyped up major championship on social media? Knee high, gnarly, thick rough with grass as sticky as when you leave spaghetti in the pot too long. No trees, in their place are bunkers to add to the danger. The USGA want to anger as many golfers as possible, so a 300-yard par-3 has been added for good measure.
The only query you could have is how fair is it if you miss the green by three yards that you have the same unapologetically impossible lie in the rough as your playing partner who is 15 yards wider than you?
The vibes around Lowry are positive but around McIlroy they haven’t been as lowkey in possibly eleven years. Driver issues, media blanks and tournament shuns, the post grand slam era has been a strange one.
But McIlroy knows he must awaken from his Masters hangover and get to grips with the Oaky-cokey or else he could be facing more potential embarrassment like he suffered in Toronto last week.
An 81 in a practice round at Oakmont last week was no fluke, rather a reminder of what is possible this week.
But the Holywood man has looked smooth in his tournament practice rounds here, swinging well, putting beautifully and driving it in play when his 2024 Taylormade model Qi10 has been required off the tee.
Disasters are guaranteed and while the cream will rise to the top come Sunday afternoon there will be big name casualties which will pave the way for the unheralded to have a run.
Here in 2016, Andrew Landry was in the final group alongside Lowry. The 37-year-old now plies his trade on the Korn Ferry Tour and is ranked outside the top-2000 in the world – Scott Piercy also shared second place here nine years ago.
Before that we had Gregory Havret who tried his best to pip Graeme McDowell to the post at Pebble Beach in 2010
Last year Matthieu Pavon was in the final group with Bryson DeChambeau while other journeymen or unheralded golfers have secured top-10 finishes over the years.
US Open previews across the board will sound dull and unimaginative because it is hard to avoid admitting that it is Scottie Scheffler vs the field and probably the closest we have got to Tiger Woods level of favouritism heading into a major since the 90s and 2000s.
Single digits and even ten-under-par has won the US Open in recent times but the USGA have said to hell with that.
Shoot level par and pray this week.
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