On its longest day, the par-4 17th hole at Oakmont Country Club measures 313 yards, easily within reach of most of the longest drivers in the field at the U.S. Open.<\/p>\n
On its shortest days, it will play 277 yards, which means it will actually be shorter than the par-3 eighth hole at Oakmont when the tees are stretched to 288 yards \u2014 or, on maybe one or two days, 300 yards. At that length, the hole will tease, tempt and beguile all 156 players in the field, daring them to take a shot as if it\u2019s an arcade game at Kennywood.<\/p>\n
But there is nothing easy about No. 17, despite its shortish length. It plays uphill to a green about as shallow as a license plate, with a 10-feet deep sand bunker fronting the putting surface. The bunker is known around Oakmont, appropriately, as \u201cBigmouth,\u201d and from a standing jump LeBron James might have a tough time laying a ball on the green from the bottom of the hazard.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t want to be in there,\u201d said Dustin Johnson, one of the game\u2019s long hitters, who said he will lay up on the hole. \u201cIt\u2019s too tough.\u201d<\/p>\n
Actually, Phil Mickelson\u2019s plan in 2007, the previous time the U.S. Open was at Oakmont, was to purposely drive the ball in Bigmouth, but only when the pin was back right. When the pin was middle to front left, he would try to hit his tee shot in the left greenside rough, creating the perfect angle to enter the putting surface.<\/p>\n
Jordan Spieth, the defending champ, has a similar plan, no matter where the pin is located.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like driver,\u201d Spieth said. \u201cThat right bunker, I hit from all different parts of it to all different pins and felt like if I hit the shot I\u2019m capable of out of that bunker, I was left with a birdie chance that would require two really solid shots from a layup and a really solid wedge just to get to that point.\u201d<\/p>\n
No matter what course of action a player chooses, whether it\u2019s to attack with a driver or lay back with a medium-iron and take your chances with a lob wedge, the 17th hole is predictably bound to have an impact on the U.S. Open. It always does.<\/p>\n
Phil Rodgers made an 8 there in the 1962 U.S. Open when his tee shot got entangled in one of the pine trees on the left side of the fairway \u2014 trees that are no longer there. Rodgers took three baseball swings to dislodge the ball, and his quadruple-bogey is the reason he missed joining the playoff with Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer by two shots.<\/p>\n
Ben Hogan drove the green when he won the U.S. Open in 1953. So did Palmer in 1962, making eagle. Nicklaus did it twice, in 1962 and 1973. Ernie Els didn\u2019t drive the green \u2014\u00a0he missed it badly to the left \u2014 but he was given a fortuitous, albeit correct, drop from the grandstand in the final round of the 1994 U.S. Open, allowing him to salvage par. Jim Furyk tried to drive the green in the final round in 2007, made bogey and lost by one to Angel Cabrera.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to lay it up,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cIf you miss the green, the green is pretty narrow and it\u2019s really tough to get up and down. I feel like with a wedge from the fairway, I\u2019m going to be able to hit it closer a majority of time than from one of those bunkers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jason Day hit a driver during a practice round Monday and missed the green to the right. But he, too, said he would probably use an iron off the tee once the tournament begins. In fact, if the course doesn\u2019t get soft, Day said it is possible he will use an iron off the tee on 10 of Oakmont\u2019s holes \u2014 1, 2, 3, 5, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15 and 17. And he and Johnson are two of the longest players on the PGA Tour.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt depends on the weather and the conditions of the golf course,\u201d Day said. \u201cThat\u2019s one out of the three drivable par 4s that\u2019s probably the most comfortable drivable-par 4 that you have on the golf course.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even if there is nothing comfortable about it.<\/p>\n