This is how fast Oakmont's greens will be for the 125th U.S. Open

USA Today

a day ago

This is how fast Oakmont's greens will be for the 125th U.S. Open
"Oakmont doesn't have greens so much as it has 18 rolling, swaying billiard tables," Sports Illustrated's Curry Kirkpatrick once wrote. "One golfer claimed he marked his ball with a nickel and the nickel slid off the green."
How fast will the greens at Oakmont be running next week at the 125th U.S. Open? The USGA announced the green speed will be running between 14 feet, 5 inches and 14 feet, 9 inches on the Stimpmeter.
In other words, don't mark your ball with a nickel.
Renowned by past USGA President Jim Hand as the one course in the country where you can step out and play the U.S. Open there tomorrow, Lee Trevino seconded that sentiment with one important addendum. 'You have to slow the greens down. You can't play the course the way the members do. Man, those members are crazy.'
Trevino wouldn't be happy to hear that the USGA has been ramping them up significantly since back in his day. In his 2006 book, "Golf Courses of the U.S. Open," David Barrett wrote that the USGA likes to keep the green speed at a Stimpmeter of around 11 or 11 1/2. 'For member-guest tournaments, though, Oakmont's members like to have them running at about 13. 'The members here,' reported one of the veteran caddies in the 1990s to Barrett, 'want to see their guests in tears.'
Many have steep slopes, including a number that tilt from front to back. Others, wrote Barrett, such as 18 have enough swales and ridges to 'make a player seasick.'
W.C. Fownes, son of Oakmont's founder and the 1910 U.S. Amateur champion, would stand at the back of the second green and drop a ball. If it didn't roll all the way down the slope and off the front of the green, he would tell his superintendent to speed things up.
Among those who have called out the club for having overdone it with the speed of the greens is noted architect Tom Doak. Writing in his book, "The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses," he said, "It has all the charm of an S.S. commandant the way it is set up for a tournament."
He added: "I'm also disappointed that the club has placed such emphasis on excessively fast greens; their contour would hold plenty of interest without it, but the attention they've given to speed has led other courses to overdo it, too."
The fastest greens in golf? Prepare to hear about Oakmont's glassy putting surfaces ad nauseam during the 125th U.S. Open. If you had a nickel for every time the announcers mention it, you'd have a lot of nickels. But just don't use one of them to mark a ball on Oakmont's slopey greens.