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How many 'pews' are in Oakmont's famed bunker for 2025 U.S. Open? You won't believe it
How many 'pews' are in Oakmont's famed bunker for 2025 U.S. Open? You won't believe it
Pray for U.S. Open golfers who miss fairways at Oakmont Country Club, especially those whose ball comes to rest in the Church Pew bunker.
Ranked No. 6 on Golfweek's Best Classic Courses list and hosting a record 10th U.S. Open this week, Oakmont features 168 bunkers in all from 'Big Mouth' in front of the 17th green to the famed Church Pew bunker situated between the third and fourth fairway, and is hazardous to your health on the left side of both holes.
This beast of a bunker spans 26,000 feet, 109-yards long and 42- yards wide, three-feet tall and 550 tons of sand. And for the 125th U.S. Open, there will be 13 pews.
When the course first opened in 1903, players faced six individual bunkers on the left side of the third but between the 1927 and 1935 U.S. Open those bunkers were converted to six pews. Ahead of the 1962 Open, the club added another one. Between the 1994 and 2007 Opens, the club added four more. This year the magic number is unlucky 13 after Gil Hanse renovated Oakmont's bunkers and inserted two more pews to the infamous bunker.
'We wanted to make sure the Pews were still in position to challenge the landing area of the longest players,' explained Hanse to Links Magazine. 'The Pews were also rebuilt to be less consistent from pew to pew, much like the ones originally constructed by the Fowneses.'
To do so, Hanse added nearly 40 yards to the par-4 third, stretching it to 462 yards. There are also five bunkers on the right side demanding precision.
Oakmont founder Henry Fownes and his son W.C. Fownes instituted the club's hard is good philosophy.
'A shot poorly played is a shot irrevocably lost,' argued W.C. Fownes. 'Let the clumsy, the spineless, the alibi artist stand aside.'
For the first 60 years, Oakmont used a rake that cut two-inch deep grooves to furrow the sand. Not everyone was fond of them.
Bobby Jones wrote, 'The Oakmont furrows seem to say, 'Well, here you are in a bunker, and it doesn't matter how good you are, or how much nerve you have, the only thing you can do now is blast,' he wrote. 'Yet a furrowed bunker, supposedly to reward the skillful player, absolutely precludes the use of a recovery shot requiring more than the application of a strong back and a willing heart!'
Jimmy Demaret famously said of these implements, 'You could have combed North Africa with it and Rommel wouldn't have gotten past Casablanca.'
Ahead of the 1953 U.S. Open, players hinted at a boycott and the USGA felt compelled to say enough is enough. But the club refused to change. Ultimately, they reached a compromise, so the fairway bunkers remained smooth while the greenside bunkers were moderately furrowed. That deal held for the Open when it returned in 1962 too. The rakes were eliminated when the coarse river sand was replaced by finer white sand, which failed to retain the furrows.
The only furrows this week at Oakmont? The brows of the disgruntled golfers when they realize their ball is in the Church Pews. Pray for them!
