U.S. Open 2025: Feel the Pain

And Caesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice
Cry “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war,
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.
—USGA Internal Document (Top Secret)

OAKMONT, Pa. — On Tuesday, walking back to the clubhouse from the far reaches of Oakmont Country Club, I saw a group of maybe a dozen men spread across the right rough on the first hole, using leaf blowers on the grass.

"Look at that," I said, "they don't want a single leaf showing."

"It's not that," said my co-worker, reminding me that there are virtually no trees anymore inside the property. "They're doing it to puff up the rough, so it catches the ball and makes everything harder."

This was the best news I'd heard all week. I can't say if it's true or not, and I refuse to look it up and risk crushing the fantasy, so let's pretend it's ironclad. Let's pretend that Oakmont is ignoring the many dozens of whiny videos moaning about the thickness of the rough and purposefully employing an army of dads to make it harder. This kind of thing? It would stir the heart. It would be the trumpets of battle, hearkening destruction for the enemy: the professional golfer.

For one week a year, we are allowed as golf fans to become untethered from the tender mercies, and root for carnage and hell. For one week, we are free to indulge our inner NASCAR fan and root for a crash. For one week, we can, judo-like, reverse the sadism that golf has delivered into our lives and project it onto the elites. No longer will the pampered sons of athletic privilege shoot 35 under on some pristine plot of soulless turf. Now, they must pay with their sweat and tears, and, ideally, blood, while we whistle and jeer from the sidelines.

That week is the U.S. Open.

Somewhere along the way, though, the U.S. Open lost its way. Four of the last five years, the winning score has been six under (the other time, it was 10 under). In the last 11 years, only one player has hoisted the championship trophy without breaking par for 72 holes. Long gone are the days when grown men would moan that they had "lost the course," or rake putts in a fit pique. There is a softness about this championship now and—at the risk of sounding melodramatic—it breaks the heart of America.

Oakmont, mighty Oakmont, presents a chance for what scholars of war call revanchism—the re-conquering of lost lands. This is a place known for its rigor, right back to the days of its founder, Henry Fownes. This self-made steel baron was something of a minor lunatic, and he constructed the course in response to the softness he saw around him. Great triumph should only be achieved through merciless struggle, he believed, and thus did his lunatic things like forming actual furrows into the bunker with 100-pound rakes. His son, W.C. Fownes, who was largely responsible for launching Oakmont onto the national stage, was a much better golfer than his father and possibly an even bigger lunatic. Here's a quote from the younger Fownes, in response to those who moaned about the difficulty of his course, that is somehow not fictional:

"Let the clumsy, the spineless, the alibi artist stand aside! A shot poorly played should be a shot irrevocably lost!"

Where, today, are men such as these? Where have all the cowboys gone?

Point is, a certain level of sadism is baked into the bloodline of Oakmont, and there is no better place for the U.S. Open to rediscover its spirit. Where better to find that old, indomitable steel than the steel city itself?

It will not be easy. The clumsy, the spineless and the alibi artists will clamor for mercy, and they'll use every craven tool at their disposal. Complaints from players, agents and certain elements of the quisling media will heap pressure on the men and women of courage who run the show, and they will seek a terrible outcome: Slow the greens, trim the rough, and encourage the dreaded birdie.

What's wrong, they'll ask, with six under par?

At the U.S. Open, everything! Everything is wrong with it!

In fact, those us who root for the pros to endure a bitter, disheartening experience these four days are in it just for the schadenfreude—although it is mostly that. We're also looking out for them. Anyone can win a wedge-and-putt contest, but only a grim warrior, a mud-speckled soldier of the earth itself, and emerge from the meat grinder of a truly destructive U.S. Open. By encouraging butchery, we give each of them the chance to win a glory unmatched. Pain is a gift!

by Shane Ryan, Golf Digest |  Read more:

Images: Patrick Smith; Andy Lyons
[ed. Let the carnage begin. See also: U.S. Open 2025: It's not all doom and gloom at Oakmont, depending on who you ask (GD).]