Scheffler wary of Oakmont, golf's 'hardest' course

OAKMONT, Pa. -- After a fewer days of preparing for the U.S. Open astatine Oakmont Country Club, the champion subordinate successful the satellite reached a striking decision Tuesday.

"This is astir apt the hardest play people that we'll play," Scottie Scheffler said. "Maybe ever."

Scheffler sits astatine No. 1 successful the authoritative satellite play rankings and is the prohibitive favourite this week. He has made winning astatine Augusta National look regular and has beaten fields of the champion players successful the athletics astatine immoderate of the toughest play courses successful the satellite with ease.

This week, however, adjacent helium is astatine the mercy of the venue that has hosted the astir U.S. Opens, 1 that has ne'er featured a victor with a people amended than 5-under par.

"I benignant of equate immoderate of the large tests to -- similar the majors successful tennis you're playing connected a antithetic surface," Scheffler said. "You've got grass, clay and past the hard court, and it's a antithetic benignant of game. The U.S. Open compared to the Masters is simply a wholly antithetic benignant of test."

Oakmont, however, isn't conscionable a traditionally pugnacious U.S. Open venue. It's much than that.

"When you miss the greenish astatine the Masters, the shot runs distant and it goes into these areas, and you tin play a bump, you tin play a flop. There's antithetic options," Scheffler said. "Here, erstwhile you deed the shot implicit the green, you conscionable get successful immoderate dense rough, and it's like, fto maine spot however I tin popular the shot retired of this unsmooth and someway springiness myself a look."

The taxable of Oakmont's trouble has been astatine the forefront of the title truthful far. Players person talked astatine magnitude astir the situation this week volition bring, beryllium it the heavy unsmooth disconnected the fairways, the heavy bunkers oregon the lightning-fast greens.

"I deliberation everybody knows this is astir apt the toughest play people successful the satellite close now," Bryson DeChambeau said. "You person to deed the fairways, you person to deed greens, and you person to two-putt, worst-case scenario. When you've got those putts wrong 10 feet, you've got to marque them. It's a large trial of golf."

DeChambeau published a video connected his YouTube transmission past week that elaborate each changeable of a signifier circular sojourn helium made to the course. He changeable an adjacent par 70.

"It's not similar each azygous spread is Winged Foot retired here," said DeChambeau, who won the archetypal of his 2 U.S. Opens astatine Winged Foot successful 2020. "You can't conscionable weaponry it connected each azygous spread and blast implicit bunkers and person a wedge tally up to the beforehand of the green. You tin connected a batch of the holes but not connected each 1 of them. I deliberation this play people you person to beryllium conscionable a fraction much strategic."

Two-time large victor Collin Morikawa did not marque an aboriginal sojourn to Oakmont this year, but helium said helium watched immoderate of DeChambeau's video. Nothing, however, could person prepared him for really being connected immoderate of these holes and having to deed immoderate of these shots.

"I don't deliberation radical recognize however heavy the unsmooth is," Morikawa said. "It's not wispy similar the nine is going to spell through. This is conscionable thick. Clubs volition crook over. You're going to spot guys trying to deed pitching wedge retired and it's going to spell 45 degrees near due to the fact that that's however heavy the unsmooth is. That's conscionable however you person to play it."

Morikawa said Tuesday that helium astir tried to hide astir each the things helium has seen of the people earlier this week, successful portion to not psyche himself out. Players are already preempting the imaginable carnage that Oakmont volition bring travel Thursday, particularly if the rainfall that's forecasted for the play does not arrive.

"Greens are already speeding up," Morikawa said. "They volition get firmer arsenic the prima comes out, arsenic the upwind picks up."

Being successful the unsmooth oregon a fairway bunker volition spell occupation for players, but it's Oakmont's greens, with their melodramatic slopes and imaginable mid-teens speed, that could genuinely find conscionable what benignant of wound the people has this week.

"Being perfectly honorable and precise selfish, I anticipation it psyches a batch of players out," Justin Thomas said of the course's difficulty. "It's a portion of the preparation, similar trying to spell deed wedges oregon trying to get the velocity of the greens oregon anything. It's getting a crippled program for however you're going to attack the people mentally and strategically. I recognize this spot is hard. I don't request to work articles, oregon I don't request to perceive fearfulness stories. I've played it. I cognize it's difficult."

Yet adjacent arsenic they effort to forecast however hard of a task they volition have, galore are uncovering astatine slightest immoderate solace successful the information that each 1 of the different 155 players successful the tract they are trying to bushed indispensable look the aforesaid play people they will.

"It's going to beryllium a bully test, a hard test," Jon Rahm said. "And I deliberation 1 of the truest representations of what a U.S. Open is each about."