Reconnecting with Fownes

Oakmont’s Mike McCormick has had a busy couple of years overseeing a Gil Hanse restoration, preparations for this year’s championship, and meeting the daily expectations of his members.

Why has one of the planet’s best courses done so much work over the past few years? “The whole impetus for this project was, first and foremost, our bunkers at Oakmont. They had not been rebuilt since 2005. We added some new sand in 2014, but didn’t reshape bunkers or regrass anything.”

Fast forward to 2021-22 and the Amateur Championship. “It was clear the bunkers had reached the end of their lifespan,” says McCormick. “They weren’t performing or draining and we had contamination.”

On top of that, play at Oakmont was at an all-time high. “It’s always busy but now we’re at about 31,000 rounds per year. That means more traffic and more sand splash. The bunkers were in a state of disrepair from both a performance and aesthetics perspective.” The club quickly decided it was time to act.

Enter Gil Hanse. “Gil proposed taking the bunkers back to what they used to be; true flat bottom bunkers. We also wanted to take the footprints of the putting surfaces back to what they were a century ago and get the perimeters of the greens back to their original elevations to add hole location opportunities. Finally, we took the grassing lines back 100 years and built a few new tees to keep those iconic Henry Fownes hazards in play for the best in the world.”

McCormick sums it up: “The end goal was to return the course as close as we possibly could to what it was during the Fownes era, tailored to the modern game.”

Rather than taking it all back to the club’s opening day, Hanse relied on images from the 1920s through the 1940s to put together a “greatest hits with different looks on different holes at different times,” says McCormick.

The other thing Hanse did was to identify architectural components that weren’t original Fownes features. “The work is subtle. Gil took out features that were more modern and he added a lot of features back in that hadn’t existed for a hundred years.”

One high priority was to return the iconic Poa annua greens back to Fownes’ design. The club worked with sod farmer Colin Boyd to collect plugs from the putting surfaces over a period of years and, ultimately, he grew in 4 acres of “Oakmont Poa” sod used to expand the perimeters. “You can’t tell what’s original and what’s expansion.”

Next on Hanse’s to-do list were more than 200 bunkers. They increased the square footage of the bunker hazards by 30% to 330K sq ft. “Gil built flat bottoms with some very severe, very steep faces. Every bunker has a vertical lip around it anywhere from 4-8” tall, then transitions to a little gentler slope.”

The Oakmont team realized that 200 bunkers with severe slopes demanded a turfgrass that could withstand both the biotic pressures and abiotic stresses from intense traffic and sand splash.

“We really did a lot of research and vetted this question,” says McCormick. “Back in the day, we weren’t necessarily that picky about which variety to use in the rough. You’d just order whatever the sod farm had. In this case, we did our research and had (famed turf PhD) Steve McDonald come in to help. He recommended HGT from Barenbrug. We did our homework and agreed.”

Why HGT? “First, you need a really aggressive bluegrass because the slopes get an immense amount of traffic. Second, we wanted a penal turf for the championships we’re going to host. Finally, when you have more than 200 bunkers you don’t want to be out all day, every day hand-watering bunker banks in droughty conditions … which is what we’d had to do in the past.”

His conclusion? “When you really look at HGT you realize how drought-tolerant it is, how disease resistant it is and how aggressive it is – which ultimately yields recovery – it was a really easy decision for us.”

They pulled the trigger and the construction team used 10 acres of HGT sod from Collins Wharf Sod Farm in Maryland on all the green surrounds, bunker surrounds and new tee surrounds. They also sodded the newly rebuilt practice range with another 10 acres of Collins Wharf-grown HGT sod.

Oakmont’s members have been playing on HGT Sod for two seasons now and the reviews are good. “We’ve already been through every variable, from hot and humid and wet or super dry like last summer. We didn’t have to hand-water bunker banks nearly as much as in the past. That’s a massive savings in labor and one less thing to lose sleep over.”

They like the look of HGT too. “Oakmont is not a monostand ... it’s an old-school course with different varieties all over. But from an aesthetic standpoint HGT blended really well.”

And they also like the playability “teeth” the blend presents to players who end up in it. “We’re going to juice the rough for the championship. It’s going to be nasty. You’re not going to want to be hitting a golf ball out of any of this HGT sod.”

Last but not least, HGT recovers quickly from stress. “The craziest thing for me is how quickly it bounces back for bluegrass. That drought-tolerance and disease tolerance goes a long way.”

What does McCormick tell his colleagues about choosing bluegrass over tall fescue? “I think there’s a big push in the industry of supers in the Midwest and Northeast choosing tall fescue. It certainly has its pros – drought tolerance and disease tolerance – but if you’re hosting a U.S. Open and you push it too far it creates concerns about playability. While we want it be diabolical, we don’t want it to be unplayable. That’s why we didn’t use tall fescue.”

McCormick says the relationship they’ve built with the experts at Barenbrug is exceptional. “We were very happy when they reached out to talk about partnering with Oakmont for the upcoming championship. The more I work with them and get to know the Barenbrug team, the more enthusiastic I’ve been about the partnership. They have a great company, a great brand and great people.”

He also tipped his hat to Eddie Moore and the whole Collins Wharf Sod Farm team. “They exceeded our expectations and just delivered exactly what we wanted and how we wanted it.”

Now, as the first of many more championships for the club approaches, McCormick sums it all up. “A championship at Oakmont is known for two things: one, the way the greens play; and two, how penal the rough is. We could have chosen any bluegrass on the market. We did our homework and we went with HGT. It was a critical decision and two years later we couldn’t be happier with it.”