Wide Open! Changing face of Oakmont

Oakmont's 18th

First winner of the US Open in 1895 was 21-year-old unknown Englishman Horace Rawlins - a professional at the host club at Newport Rhode Island - a nine hole course, which staged the 36-hole competition for ten professionals and one amateur.

He won $150 and a gold medal.

This week at Oakmont Country Club near Pittsburgh, 147 of the world's best pros (together with nine amateurs chasing a similar golf medal) will challenge for the 107th US Open with the winner claiming $1.2 million in prizemoney and associated riches worth much, much more.

Over 100 years ago, Horace used an ecclectic variety of hickory-shafted implements to achieve his two round score of 176 round a course where horse-drawn mowers trimmed the fairways.

This week the winner will have had his 14 clubs custom-fitted with the latest space-age technology to overcome punishing rough and upturned saucer-shaped greens created to make fools of many of the game's current heroes.

Saucer-style greens at Oakmont

But they wouldn't recognise the place now - it has been given a chain saw facelift! Over 4,000 trees have been removed to return it to its original concept as a reproduction of the Scottish links-style landscapes, conceived by its founder, local industrialist Henry Fownes.

By cutting down the trees planted 40 years ago, the members and the US Open organisers say it has enabled the modern grasses to flourish and allow an extra 10,000 to watch the spectacle than witnessed Els' first major in 1994.

Trees were removed in the early morning at Oakmont

Former superintendant Mark Kuhns recalled what happened.

"We'd sneak on the course in the early morning hours to remove trees before any of the members could notice. I had a crew of 12 workers and we'd begin cutting at 4.30 a.m, using the lights from the maintenance carts. We piled the logs from the felled trees out of sight.

"We had all the equipment loaded the night before andeveryone knew their job and we'd take out three or four at a time. We'd spread out tarpaulins so we didn't get a lot of sawdust on the ground. We had two sweepers who would sweep up all the leaves and we'd grind the stumps down to nothing, throw down some soil and cover it with turf. We'd even fluff up the grass and be cleaned up before the players got out there."

Bunkers at Oakmont have been re-styled

Now, the only trees still standing on the interior course are the giant oaks and sycamores in the area behind the 10th tee and 18th green, though an elm has survived near the third tee and another between the fourth and fifth holes.

"For any golf course, less trees are better for turf conditions," says Oakmont superintendent John Zimmers. "Shade is a very bad thing, it prevents sunlight and airflow."

Even so, it's a slightly odd restoration project in comparison to Augusta National where over 250 trees are being inserted to make the course more difficult.

"A lot of people who play golf who are suburbanites, they respect trees - trees are beautiful," says Oakmont member Mickey Pohl, chairman of the 2007 US Open. "There was a minority who thought it was a big mistake but now people have seen it has improved the golf course and made it a tremendous layout." It remains to be seen whether Oakmont will yet again throw up a household name as a winner, as it has in the past, with Tommy Armour, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus or Johnny Miller, or whether, on a course so unfamiliar to most Tour pros, we might again get a Steve Jones, Michael Campbell or Geoff Ogilvy.

And with all the lumber work that's been going on as an omen, I'm predicting a play-off - between Woody Austin and Tiger Woods!