When Oakmont Country Club is mentioned, visions of lightning-fast greens, deep, unforgiving bunkers and some of the great moments in golf history come to mind.
Well, it's time to adjust that vision just a bit.
The ongoing project to restore the grand old course to the way it looked and played in the early days of its existence is well under way and has yielded spectacular results.
For the last dozen or so of the 16 major championships held there, those in attendance and the TV audience saw a course that had many trees scattered across the landscape. The trees were pretty and, in some instances, they provided wonderful framing for holes.
But that wasn't the way William Fownes, the patriarch of golf at Oakmont, intended his place to be. He had a parkland course with a linksy look, one that would allow the wind to be a key part of every round played there.
Nearly 4,000 removed trees later, you get the impression Mr. Fownes is smiling somewhere. While this past Friday afternoon was hardly prototypical Scottish or Irish weather, the partly cloudy, then cloudy, then cool, then rainy progression that followed us around the course was close enough.
Head golf professional Bob Ford led the foursome. At his suggestion, the round was contested from as far back on the longest tees as possible — something in the neighborhood of 7,200 yards from start to finish.
But yardage was really not was this round was about. Oh sure, it was difficult, and even daunting at times. It wasn't for Ford, who smoothed his way to a fairly easy 69.
No, this day was about Ford showing off the spectacular changes to three wide-eyed guests. And the guests spent a lot of the day trying to remember where thick groves of trees or single large trees used to be.
Most spectacular sights of the day⢠The views from the new championship tees on the 4th, 7th and 18th holes are something to behold. Oh, by the way: It takes a carry of at least 220 yards to reach the 7th fairway from back there.
But the best was standing in the middle of the 17th fairway, the uphill par-4 that can be driven by the young, strong and adventurous. The green on that hole, fronted by the famous "Big Mouth" bunker, has been redone. With trees that used to frame the hole having been removed, you stand over your ball trying to figure out how to put it onto a tabletop with a flagstick in the middle of it.
New deep bunkers have been added behind the green to catch shots from those who misjudge the distance.
Much had been done, and much more will be done before the U.S. Amateur is held there in August 2003 and the U.S. Open comes to town in June 2007. Course superintendent John Zimmers has the course in unbelievable condition, even though the weather thus far has not cooperated.
Bottom line on the retro-Oakmont: You have to see it to believe it.
COMING OF AGE
Two of the district's newer upscale public golf courses, Tom's Run at Chestnut Ridge and the Links at Spring Church, have arrived. Not in the literal sense, since Tom's Run has been in existence since 1994 and the Links is into its third season of play.
They've arrived in the sense that their major growing pains have passed and they have now moved on to the maturation process.
At Tom's Run, the most noticeable step forward is the general firmness of the course. Even with all of the rain that has fallen on western Pennsylvania this spring, balls are actually hitting and rolling on the Tom's Run fairways, something that rarely happened in its early years.
Golf professional Dave Kuhar attributes drainage patterns that took awhile to start working, as well as the turf on the fairways getting strong enough to require less watering by the superintendent and his staff.
Carts are allowed on the fairways at Tom's Run for the most part, and the turf is holding up just fine. The conditions on that course have been first-rate from its inception, and that hasn't changed.
Just north of Apollo, the Links at Spring Church has quickly moved up the list of must-plays and offers players of all abilities all sorts of challenges. Length, accuracy, testy greens — all the things that make a golf course a test, with a healthy dose of wind thrown in on most occasions for a little icing on the cake.
Dave Snyder, the Links' pro, smiles when he talks about the course, which has quickly risen to elite status among upscale public facilities in western Pennsylvania. Firm, smooth-rolling greens, well-conditioned fairways and unrivaled views are standard fare there.
TEACHING TIPS
PGA professional Brian Dunaway of Cherry Creek Golf Course is among the pros who'll be participating in Play Golf America, the national growth-of-the-game campaign sponsored by the PGA of America and Golf Digest.
From 9 a.m.-2 p.m. today, Dunaway and his fellow pros will be offering free 10-minute lessons to amateurs who contact the pro shop at 724-925-8665
