Oakmont set for return to national stage
When the buzz of the U.S. Amateur Championship descends onto Western Pennsylvania in August, Oakmont Country Club will be ready.
After all, next month’s tournament will mark the club’s sixth U.S. Amateur and 23rd national championship. And while a multitude of differences — including a match play format and lack of grandstands — separate the amateur contest from the storied U.S. Open, Oakmont head professional Devin Gee said the club’s more recent major championships have primed it to succeed.
“Oakmont’s always in the spotlight because it’s Oakmont,” he said. “Having been through a U. S. Open, a Women’s Open, it definitely prepares you.”
Gee arrived at Oakmont as an intern in 2006, three years after the club’s last U.S. Amateur. Since then, the famed course has hosted the U.S. Open in 2007 and 2016 and the U.S. Women’s Open in 2010.
By January 2017, Gee had learned how to host a national championship and been promoted twice — first as assistant to longtime head professional Bob Ford, then as Ford’s successor.
But the 2021 U.S. Amateur will be Gee’s first at Oakmont, and the head pro said the tournament typically involves the club’s own personnel more than other national championships. Gee even expects Aug. 9-15 to be his golf shop’s “busiest week in 20 years.”
That’s because Oakmont’s shop will be open and selling merchandise during the tournament, while it normally closes during the U.S. Open to make way for a hospitality area. In another difference, the grandstands that usually loom over the course during the U.S. Open weekends will be gone, with the space left free for spectators to walk the course alongside competitors.
Gee is trying to gauge how many spectators will be in attendance; two months ago, he wasn’t sure if fans would even be allowed. Now, tickets are available and Gee has to anticipate how many will sell.
So, he calls on Ford, whom he refers to as “the greatest mentor anyone can ask for in the golf world or in life.”
Ford is still involved in the tournament and with the club. He retired from Seminole Golf Country Club in Florida — where he used to split time with Oakmont — earlier this summer, but Ford has kept one foot planted firmly in the golf world by signing on as a co-chairman for the U.S. Amateur.
“Now our relationship is I call him when I need him — and I call him a lot, especially with this,” Gee said.
While Gee wasn’t on-site for Oakmont’s hosting duties in 2003, he has scoured the history books and studied scores, photographs and videos from that year. He knows how long the rough was, how fast the greens were. And he knows the golfers in this year’s U.S. Amateur could face similar conditions in August, when the course plays much harder than earlier in the summer.
Of the 312 players in the U.S. Amateur field, local golfers could hold the everpresent advantage of knowing the course and its greens. So far, five have qualified: Mark Goetz (Greensburg), Palmer Jackson (Murrysville), Sean Knapp (Oakmont), Jimmy Meyers (Wexford) and Jake Sollon (Peters Township).
The advantage of playing on a familiar course could be heightened by the fact that the course itself doesn’t undergo changes before hosting national events, a testament to Oakmont’s year-round upkeep and tough test of golf.
“Whether it’s a U.S. Open, U.S. Women’s Open, U.S. Amateur, U.S. Women’s Amateur, on our golf course, really the only thing that changes is the rough,” Gee said. “So in the year of a major championship, really the question is, ‘How long is the rough going to be?’
“Our fairway widths are always the same, whether it’s Sunday of the U.S. Open or Sunday in a normal June. The bunkers always stay the same depth, and we always love to say we slow the greens down.”
In Oakmont’s most recent U.S. Open, a rainy week in 2016 produced more than 50 sub-par rounds — including seven on that Sunday in June — as the field was gifted with a kinder course than many expected. But even a soggy Oakmont held eventual champion Dustin Johnson to 4-under.
Gee knows that amateur golfers in August will likely face a dry, punishing course, but he’s excited to see how their game translates.
“When you come out here in the fall, you just can’t imagine how fast the greens are,” Gee said. “We’ll all be watching closely to see where all these young guys are hitting it.”