Oakmont, the site of this year’s U.S. Open, and the tall tale that tells it all

Have you ever heard an amazing story that makes you want it to be true?

The sort of story that tells the whole story of a place and its people, exposing the truth at the heart of the narrative. It’s one of those fables that is passed down and recited from generation to generation, with each new version adding a bit more detail and impact. It becomes more commonplace the more times the story is told. The more it turns into reality.

Oakmont Country Club members love to share a story about the club. They are correct to say that. The story about the most difficult golf course in America, located just outside of Pittsburgh and hosting the U.S. A. This week is open. This course was built by the Fownes family, a father and son team who were so devoted to the sanctity of par that the renowned W. C. “A shot poorly played should be a shot irrevocably lost,” goes Fownes’ quote. “.”.

And this tale? The residents of Oakmont always took it at face value.

Right up until very recently.

David Moore, an Oakmont historian, laughs and says, “Well. There is currently some discussion regarding that. “”.

This is how it proceeds.

Sam Snead and Gene Sarazen compete against Byron Nelson and Jug McSpaden in an exhibition event held in Pittsburgh as part of the 1945 war bond drive. On the challenging par four seventh hole at Oakmont, Snead takes an extra aggressive line and flies the fairway bunker during a practice round. He has a quick, simple pitch onto the green to make a birdie.

In search of a phone, Emil Loeffler dashes up the hill, past the ninth green, and into the wraparound clubhouse as soon as the Oakmont superintendent notices it. He dials W, his boss. C. Fownes, who is traveling to Rhode Island in the north.

“Mr. Sam Snead simply carried out the trap we set out, Fownes, says Loeffler.

Fownes answers, “All right, can we finish that by tomorrow?”.

Thus, Snead adopts the same aggressive stance the following day, this time in competition. This time, he finds his ball in a brand-new bunker with Loeffler standing next to it as he ascends the fairway.

The latter responds, “Mrdot Fownes, congratulations.”.

Overnight, they had installed a bunker.

That is Oakmont’s ultimate story. Furrowed rakes made the bunkers so difficult that they were illegal by 1964. The course also had the fastest greens you’ve ever seen, the thickest, nastiest rough, the toughest fairways, and the fastest rough. the founder, H. C. As he grew older, Fownes would spend his days watching play from the porch, checking to make sure that any bad shots weren’t appropriately penalized. as well as his son W. A. might have been even more spiteful in his wish to keep Oakmont’s challenge intact. “Set aside the awkward, the cowardly, the alibi artist!” W. A. is recognized for saying.

In W, there was a faint hint of Dante. A. Professor of history at Carnegie Mellon and author of several books about Oakmont, Steven Schlossman, stated as much.

Such truths were so aptly captured in this story. Before Oakmont was renovated by Gil Hanse and his crew two years ago in preparation for the U.S. A. Open for the tenth time.

Moore recently spoke with a board member of Oakmont who is on the archive committee and assisted with the restoration. At the beginning of the restoration, Moore and Hanse spent hours looking through old photographs when they came across these old drawings of each hole that resembled blurry aerial photographs. They were for a newspaper previewing a tournament, he believes.

Moore was informed by the participant that they were fixated on this 1938 illustration of No. 7.

“It appears that the notorious Snead bunker is already there. “.”.

They were questioning their reality. Moore spoke with Devin Gee, a club pro who is as skilled at narrating stories in interviews as anyone, shortly after.

Moore told him, “Hey, we think it might have been there beforehand.”.

“Really?” asked Gee.

Perhaps. “.”.

“Well,” Gee joked, “don’t let the truth ruin a good story.”.

Perhaps it goes even further than that. Perhaps it’s better to let the truth stand out despite a little ambiguity. There is the well-known line from “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” in which Jimmy Stewart’s character reveals who actually shot the title character and queries the editor for not telling the truth. “Sir, this is the West,” the editor says. Print the legend as soon as it is confirmed. “.”.

Legend is also the foundation of Oakmont. As in the story of H. A. Before the year 2000, Fownes, a prosperous Pittsburgh businessman, had a flat tire on his bicycle. He did not wear any protective gear, but he heated a wire with a torch to fix it himself. Soon after, he developed spots in his vision, which a doctor misdiagnosed as arteriosclerosis. H. . C. given a few years to live; at the time, he was 39. In order to enjoy his alleged last years, he sold Andrew Carnegie his Carrie Furnace Company. Eventually, that meant playing golf and rising to the top of the local rankings. Yet, he created his own because he desired a more challenging course. A doctor didn’t change the diagnosis until years later. He lived until 1935.

An element of absolutism is present in every Fownes story. Correct or incorrect. Good or bad, based on Oakmont members’ conduct or the fallout from a poor strategy. For one time, H. A. observed a member breaking a minor club regulation. The player’s clubhouse locker was emptied and packed in a box by the time their round was over. He was expelled from the group. Their course proceeded in the same manner.

In 1915, Oakmont members performed a skit in which they recited a poem, which was featured in Golf Illustrated.

On one occasion, Bill Fownes stood by a green.

A hole in four was made by someone.

He declared, “I’ll stop that.”.

“I’ll add two more bunkers. “”.

He did, in fact, build them both.

They were visible where they were.

the initial one just prior to the tee.

The other one on the green. “”.

Schlossman stated that they did not perceive it as vindictiveness. “The chance to hit onto fairways that were on par with anyone else’s, on holes that were exquisitely designed, fair, and difficult, and hitting to greens that no one had ever played before in terms of quality, should reward more virtue. “”.

As far as we know, each of these stories is true, but people in the Oakmont area question whether the bunker story is a lie.

Gee and Moore pondered…. They had always heard the story, but no one ever explicitly identified which bunker or even which side of the fairway it was. Moore speculated that it might have been the left-hand side. Given the shape of the hole, that would make more strategic sense.

No obvious initial reference to the lore was found in Moore’s archives, so how does a story like this even begin? To locate the first printed reference, I combed through newspaper archives from the 1930s to the present for an unforgivably long time. To the best of our knowledge, it wasn’t written or published until decades after the purported incident.

The majority of the writing on it has come from veteran Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter Marino Parascenzo, one of the great golf scribes. It appeared in numerous freelance works, including one on the USGA website, and in his 2003 book “Oakmont: 100 Years.”. When The Athletic tried to reach the 94-year-old Parascenzo, he didn’t reply. There are innumerable tales about Oakmont and its past written by renowned game chroniclers like Michael Bamberger, Dan Jenkins, and Bob Drum. Not one of them included that particular anecdote.

A video about Oakmont’s history was produced at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Snead is not shown narrating this story, but the producers interviewed previous winners about the course. However, Snead’s playing partner on that day, the legendary Gene Sarazen, a seven-time major winner, is among the interviewees.

Talking about Snead carrying the trap, Sarazen narrates the tale. When Loeffler ran inside to call Fownes, he tells us.

“Mr. He recalled what Loeffler had said: “Fownes, Sam Snead carried that trap we put in.”.

“He says, ‘Put another one below it,'” Sarazen goes on.

And there was the man. He witnessed Snead deliver the purported opening shot. The following day, he watched him drive into the bunker. Even though Sarazen was certain that the alleged call was to Newport, Rhode Island, he was obviously not with Loeffler at the time. Since the bunker was constructed overnight, he was most likely not present. This story took place about fifty years ago. Who can say for sure if Sarazen was simply repeating what had been told to him over the years?

Then, however, we discovered one image in the Valley News of Lebanon, N., during our extensive archive search. H. employed ahead of the 2007 U.S. S. . Located in Oakmont. Upon closer inspection, it became evident that the image was a USGA preview of all 18 holes that were used by newspapers nationwide.

Not at all. In graphic 7, Sam Snead’s effortless bunker clearance during the 1935 U.S. S. Open. It claims that Fownes added another bunker because he was so furious.

Was it the bunker in the aerial photograph of the hole taken in 1938, was it another bunker added during that war bond event, was it the left side of the fairway as Moore proposed, or did all these fragments of disparate stories gradually come together over the years to form a single, more expansive story?

There is only one issue. The 1935 U did not feature Sam Snead. A. Unlocked.

My sanity was called into question at this point. All of this might not be real. Maybe none of us are real. I don’t know, man. When you think about it, what are we truly certain of? I’m aware that Oakmont is a challenging place.

(Photos: John G. Bettmann; Illustration: Dan Goldfarb/The Athletic. Jonathan K. Zimmerman. Getty Images/Aller; Oakmont Country Club.