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Golfers will soon have the difficult task of navigating the course at Oakmont Country Club during the 125th edition of the US Open Championship. The venue will offer an array of hazards and impossible conditions as players battle for a major victory.
Former PGA Tour competitor Johnson Wagner highlighted one of the most unforgiving areas that will be dealt with this weekend. He failed in hilarious fashion to escape the famed Church Pews Bunker.
The Church Pews are a signature feature at Oakmont. There is a history behind their introduction to the course.
Oakmont prides itself in creating difficult lies for wayward shots. The course penalizes golfers for their inability to hit fairways. That can be immediately seen in the thick roughs, which are intentionally manicured by custom mowers to achieve ridiculous grass height.
It can also be seen in the sand traps, one of which is arguably the most daunting in the sport.
What are the Oakmont Church Pews?
A massive bunker splits the third and fourth holes. It’s lined with 13 berms of fescue grass. Those mounds provide an obstacle to shoot over for players in the middle of the trap. Those that land atop the mounds can find life even more difficult.
Initially, the large bunker was a series of six closely located hazards along the left side of Hole No. 3. Henry Fownes, who built the course in 1903, decided to combine them in 1935.
“A poor shot should be a shot irrevocably lost.”
-Henry Fownes
After combining the group of bunkers, six floating berms were strategically placed inside sand trap. Originally called “snake mounds,” that number continued to grow in the years that followed.
There’s no water at Oakmont. Fownes wanted the sand to provide an equal or more challenging hazard. He succeeded!
Johnson Wagner showed how difficult Oakmont’s Church Pews can be.
Wagner, a former PGA Tour player turned NBC Golf analyst, attempted a variety of shots from different areas of the bunker. He noted that if you’re able to avoid hitting directly into the middle of the sand trap, your ability to get out of trouble increases significantly.
If you get in range of those berms, though, things get dicey! Johson successfully hit the green on an attempt from the sand behind one of the church pews. He then attempted a shot from atop the grass. That try went hilariously wrong, darting immediately wayward from his intended target.
Wagner isn’t likely to be the only person that struggles with Oakmont’s Church Pews Bunker this week. It should provide major issue for those that stray from the fairway.