It’s hard to believe that the PGA Season has already come to the 3rd Major of the year. We head to the Suburbs of Pittsburgh, PA for the 2025 US Open.

The US Open will be played at Oakmont Country Club this year. Oakmont is literally a historic landmark receiving that designation in 1987. It was established in 1903 and has hosted the US Open nine times which is the most of any course. The 2025 version will be the tenth time with the most recent being in 2016 when Dustin Johnson won with a score of four under par.

In preparation for this year, the course was renovated by Gil Hanse in 2023. The biggest change was adding more than 24,000 square feet to the green complexes. There were also changes to the 7th fairway as well as making the bunkers more penal.

Oakmont is considered to be one of the most difficult courses in the United States despite having barely any water or trees on the course. There are 168 bunkers scattered about the property including the church pews bunker which has 13 grass mounds resembling the formation of church pews. The greens are large, undulating and very fast. Holes 1, 3, 10 and 12 all have greens that slope from front to back making for difficult approach shots.

As mentioned Dustin Johnson won the most recent US Open at Oakmont. He won by three strokes over Shane Lowry, Jim Furyk and Scott Piercy. Johnson received a penalty stroke after his round and was still able to win by multiple strokes. He went to address the ball on hole five and his ball moved. He stepped away from the ball and told the rules official that he never addressed it but was ultimately penalized anyway. Play was suspended three times in the first round due to heavy rain and dangerous weather conditions. They were forced to play catchup with several golfers finishing up their third rounds on Sunday morning.

Oakmont is a 7,372 yard par 70 with Poa greens. There are 168 bunkers on the course and virtually no water or trees. There are ditches that run through some holes that will have 12-18 inch native grass.

There are two par-5s, four par-3s and twelve par-fours. The par-5s are long with both of them playing over 600 yards. The 608 yard 4th hole plays as the 2nd easiest hole on the course. The 632 yard 12th hole is not as easy boasting a 27% bogey rate. The par-3s also ply long with the shortest being 183 yards and the longest being a ridiculous 288 yards.

The average distance of the par-4s is 435 yards with nearly half of them measuring 450-500 yards. The five most difficult holes on the course are all par-4s with the opening hole playing as the most difficult. It boasts a nearly 40% bogey rate.

Off the tee golfers will be heavily rewarded for hitting fairways. While there are no trees to be concerned with we know that deep penal rough is a staple of US Open golf and this week will be no different. In past iterations of the US Open golfers only found the fairway on 55% of tee shots so golfers will have to deal with shots from the rough. Bombers could also have an advantage simply due to the fact that distance will help with shorter approach shots and shorter clubs.

Approach shots will be extremely difficult with many coming from 200+ yards and the bulk of 2nd shots being hit from 175+ yards. Hitting from 5 inch rough will have many guessing as far as to how well the ball will come out. As a result we could see more shots with wedges than expected if golfers cannot reach the green. Even when approach shots do hit the green they will be difficult to hold with many run-offs and extremely fast greens.

The greens are large, tricky and will play as the fastest greens of any course this year. Despite larger greens hitting greens in regulation is still extremely difficult. Missed greens could find deep greenside bunkers or deep rough placing a huge emphasis on around the green play and scrambling.

All together Oakmont will test every aspect of the golfers game as well as their resolve. We generally see the cream rise to the top when the difficulty is ratcheted up. However it will be interesting to see if the course is set up so difficult that even good shots get penalized. If that is the case we could definitely see some random names on top of the leaderboard.

2025 US Open: The Key Stats

• Approach
• Around the Green
• Par 4s 450-500 yards
• Proximity 200+ yards
• Driving Distance
• Bogey Avoidance

Recent Winners of The US Open

2024: DeChambeau -6 (Pinehurst)
2023: Wyndham Clark -10 (LACC)
2022: Matt Fitzpatrick -6 (Brookline)
2021: Jon Rahm -6 (Torrey Pines)
2020: DeChambeau -6 (Winged Foot)