A love letter to Oakmont, our favourite U.S. Open car crash

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OAKMONT, Pa. — It wasn’t Jason Day’s turn to play his shot, but he did anyway.

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In a weekend round with your pals this is called ‘ready golf’ but this is the U.S. Open.

Standing in the 18th fairway at Oakmont on Thursday, Day looked back toward the left rough and saw playing partner Corey Conners deep in thought, staring at his ball in a bunker. The Aussie then looked back to his right and saw Patrick Reed deep in thought staring into a sand trap on the right side.

This major championship often brings out a We’re All In This Together attitude as the game’s top players gather for their annual bludgeoning.

Already five-and-a-half hours into their round, Day decided to get on with things and hit a beautiful iron shot toward the final hole. He then immediately sagged to the ground as it skipped over the green, inches from perfection, but now in a nearly impossible spot to save his par.

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This is the U.S. Open, the annual car crash of a major where weekend hackers rejoice at watching the world’s best players go through the same emotional rollercoaster of futility, hope and eventually hopelessness that recreational golfers experience every time they pull their clubs from the trunk.

What the pros can’t possibly understand, and why we like it, is that for most of us every weekend is the U.S. Open at Oakmont.

Back to the 18th hole.

Reed was next to play, and after spending most of the day near the top of the leaderboard, his shot hit the lip of the sand trap and buried in the five-inch rough just few yards ahead. On the other side of the fairway, Conners couldn’t see what Reed was up to.

“I had no idea, no,” the Canadian said of Reed’s travails after his round. “I felt like I had enough room for my shot. It could have gone very, very badly but I knew if I executed I was going to be fine.”

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Conners pulled off his fairly risky shot, advancing the ball 140 yards, and then watched as Reed hacked at his third and it barely skittered across the fairway.

“I was trying I was decide how far up I could advance it, I felt like I could get it where I did with a wedge and I liked my chances of getting it up and down from there versus laying it back a little further,” Conners said. “I gave myself a chance.”

At Oakmont, a chance is all you can hope for as a golfer.

Sound familiar?

And that’s so many people are glued to the U.S. Open. Golf is the only professional sport where almost everybody who watches on TV also plays the game.

As the sport gets less and less relatable at the professional level because of money and distance and fitness, the U.S. Open is the great equalizer. It’s the one tournament where we see scorecards that look like our scorecards: Disaster after disaster after disaster with the occasional splash of brilliance.

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On Friday, a poor soul named George Duangmanee shot 47 on Oakmont’s front nine, before making his first par of the day at the ninth, just to keep him going.

Sound familiar?

Before the tournament began, two-time major champion Collin Morikawa arrived at the 300-yard eighth hole and forgot it was a par 3, asking his playing partners and caddie if they think he should go for the green.

“There’s not a ton of strategy other than like hitting your driver within 15 yards or your 3-wood within 15 yards,” he said of the crazy hole. “Just hit and hope, honestly.”

Sound familiar?

Back to the 18th hole.

With Conners safely on the par-4 green in three shots, the Canadian watched as Day and Reed, both just off the back of the green, tried to figure out how to stop their ball from rolling forever past a hole that was just a few yards away.

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Armed with two of the best short games of their generation, both Day and Reed took extreme risk, opened the face of their lob wedge and played full flop shots. Day’s attempt was perfection and his ball landed like a sack of flour, stopping 22 inches from the hole. Reed couldn’t stop his from rolling 35 feet past.

“They had to,” Conners said of the risk. “If Reed just nudged it forward, his ball goes to the same spot. And same with Day, if he just chipped it out it’s running to the middle of the green. I was not at all expecting to see his ball stop two feet from the hole. That was sweet.”

Reed made a triple bogey. Conners made a bogey. Day saved his par.

“The shot on 18 from Day was remarkable,” Conners said. “I hope to learn that one day.”

Sound familiar?

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