When the elite roster of the world’s top golfers descends on the Oakmont Country Club for the third men’s major, the U.S. Open, they’d notice several changes on the historic course since the last time it held the U.S Open (2016). The “weather-dependent course” has been completely renovated to restore its original design and bring back some of its best features from the years 1903 to 1946. A few of those changes, according to Bubba Watson, will serve as a major headache for the players in June.
One of the changes to the layout is the extension to 7,372 yards, which is 153 yards longer than the par-70 course in 2016. Three key features that will make Oakmont more challenging for scoring next month are the rough, the ditches, and the greens. Bubba Watson believes that the rough will be the biggest factor in making scoring difficult.
Recently, Watson sat down for an interview on ESPN and shared his thoughts on the already notorious Oakmont Country Club: “Oakmont is crazy. Even on a regular day, Oakmont, with the rough up, I finished fifth there in ’07, um, when Angel Cabrera won. And, um, the rough was, I mean, the rough felt like it was a foot deep. And now there’s no trees there. Like, they’ve changed the trees. You can see the whole golf course now. Um, but they’re still going to have the high rough.
“Without rain. It’s going to be firm and fast, like Lynx golf, but then with high rough. Um, so yeah, they’re going to, like I said, they’re going to—we call it tricking it up. They’re gonna put the pins in crazy places where you’re gonna have to—missing the green sometimes is better than hitting the green because the chips going to be easier than a long putt.”
What Watson means is that with the fast fairways and high rough, competitors must navigate both the hard ground and thick grass that penalize errant shots. Tournament organizers intend to “trick it up” by placing pins in challenging locations, which increases the course’s difficulty. This strategy encourages players to think critically about their shots, as missing the green may sometimes be advantageous, leading to easier chip shots instead of the challenge of long putts.
Of course, that comes with the fact that the course has seen many changes. The rough, currently at five inches, has thickened due to a wet spring and is expected to grow taller as the championship unfolds. Additionally, the course will not feature the recent trend of graduated rough, which typically includes a shorter first cut near the fairway to reward players who miss narrowly. From the early 1990s to 2015, the removal of tens of thousands of trees, most planted in the 1960s, has restored Oakmont’s original challenging design. This includes some of the most infamous bunkers in the game, created by founder-architect H.C. Fownes, who strategically placed bunkers based on where players hit errant shots, along with deep drainage ditches and rough that reaches ankle height.
Furthermore, the many ditches that define Oakmont, along with the Church Pews bunker, will pose even more hazards this year. The course designers expanded the greens by 24,000 square feet, and according to USGA Senior Director of Player Relations Scott Langley, there is now much more ‘pinnable space’ available on the greens. However, the course is iconic in more ways than one.
Oakmont Country Club served as a small inspiration for the stimpmeter
Oakmont Country Club has long been known for its fast greens, and it contributed to the inspiration for the stimpmeter—an invention that, while now standard in the modern game, took decades to gain acceptance. In the years before World War II, Edward Stimpson, a former Harvard golfer and the 1935 Massachusetts State Amateur champion, believed that greens were becoming so fast that they could be unfair to players. He felt his theory was validated when he learned that Gene Sarazen had putted off a green and into a bunker at Oakmont during the 1935 US Open.
One month until we crown a champion. pic.twitter.com/AcwDnSpV5M
— U.S. Open (@usopengolf) May 15, 2025
As a committed student of the game, especially in putting, Stimpson designed a basic wooden track with a notch to securely hold a golf ball at a consistent angle for precise testing of green surfaces. He shared his concept with the USGA, but the organization was slow to embrace it, only utilizing the device in a national championship for the first time in 1976, four years before Stimpson passed away. At its first use at the Atlanta Athletic Club, the greens measured a speed of seven, which could be significantly less than what they might reach at Oakmont in 2025.
In fact, here is what the stats say: While Oakmont may not be the toughest course in the U.S., it comes close, featuring a Course Rating of 77.5 and a Slope Rating of 150 out of 155. Only about 20 of the country’s 16,000 courses rank as tougher. The front nine presents slightly more challenges than the back, with a Slope Rating of 153 compared to the back’s 147. Who will you be rooting for?
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