He didn’t even need to set foot in it.
The 12 months was 2007. Tiger Woods was scouting Oakmont Nation Membership, seeing the property for the primary time exterior of TV highlights and images. A bunch of 82 American Categorical cardholders walked alongside, watching Woods, jaws open.
A “small” charge of $900 received these AmEx prospects onto Oakmont for the day, however little did they know they’d get to spend it with the then 13-time main champion. Woods helped execute the shock as a cardholder perk, inviting them for a stroll round that 12 months’s U.S. Open venue as he strategized for the match forward.
Once they arrived at No. 3, Woods striped a 3-iron off the tee, splitting the golf green with ease. When the group approached his ball, one onlooker curiously requested, “Are you able to hit one from the church pews?”
“No,” Woods replied, in accordance with the AP.
Woods finally agreed to face within the notorious 108-yard-long bunker, smiling momentarily just for a photo-op, earlier than climbing out once more: “I solely follow from the place I count on to play.”
The monstrosity sits between the third and fourth fairways. It now occupies greater than 28,000 sq. toes of Oakmont actual property. And it lives rent-free within the psyche of any golfer who steps up on that tee field. The bunker creeps into your peripheral imaginative and prescient, even if you happen to don’t anticipate taking part in from it.
Oakmont’s church pew bunker, one of the recognizable golf course options on the earth, is simply as lovely as it’s maddening. So is its historical past.
Learn extra about that historical past beneath.
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What’s Oakmont’s church pew bunker? Historical past behind distinctive U.S. Open course characteristic
