Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Discover America's Playing Field, home to the iconic Pro Football
Hall of Fame and the growing Hall of Fame Village.
Explore a vibrant city filled with award winning dining options,
exciting events and entertainment.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Find it here in America's Playing Field.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Connect would visit Canton for personal lives assistance planning an unforgettable.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Trend planning a golf trip to Scotland.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
Take a look at Scotland's golf Coast, with twenty one
golf courses or within twenty minutes for each other. This
is the greatest concentration of championship links golf courses in
the world. Scotland's Golf Coast offers courses for all abilities,
from flagship courses Millfield and North Berwick, must play courses
Dunbar and Gullen and hidden gems including the Glen and Gifford.
(00:55):
There's a wide range of accommodation, many offerings, day and
play golf packages and with Him are just thirty minutes away.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
The area provides everything for your golf trip.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
Check out the area on Scotland's Golf Coast dot com.
Speaker 5 (01:10):
Visit Betton, Ohio presents golfing around sponsored by.
Speaker 6 (01:20):
Squares, golf shoes, change your shoes, change of games, Team
USA versus Team Scotland, Amateur Golf.
Speaker 5 (01:29):
Championships Amateur Golfers.
Speaker 7 (01:32):
You can win a trip to Saint Andrew's Scotland.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
Ahead Golf Hats and Golf of Para, Kuggans Golf Resorts,
Minnesota's Golf Paradise, Superstrub, Plotter's Ground, the Choice of.
Speaker 8 (01:52):
Champions, Scotland's Golf Coast Discovered twenty one of Scotland's plus
quarter is It's Ohio, Ohio's.
Speaker 7 (02:10):
Hello and welcome to the Golfing Around Radio Hour. I'm
your host, Randy the tank Tantlier. You can just call
me Tank, your golfing buddy. Yeah, you know that one
buddy that can't get off the t's. You know, you're
one buddy who just slices. You know that one buddy
that's like a twenty seven handicap.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
That's me.
Speaker 7 (02:29):
But I'm there for a good joke, a cold drink,
a cigar, a few bad shots, followed by a couple
chip shots, couple putts. Because I can putt, I can
drain them. I can drain putts with a beer in
my hand. John daily ing It I call it. Hey,
(02:49):
welcome to the golfing around radio hour. It's exciting week.
It is the beginning of US Open twenty five, America's
national championship. On a bizarre note, the Open Championship the
(03:10):
first one. You remember old Tom Morris and Merefield and
you know Presstwick and all that in Scotland. I'll talk
about that later on in the show that I got
to play royal Port Rush for the third time in
my life. Royal Port Rush home to the Open Championship
in Northern Ireland this year. Roy McElroy, yeah he played,
(03:36):
grew up playing on royal Port Rush. What do you
think the odds are? Anyway, it's an exciting show. It's
an exciting week for golf as things pick up. And
don't forget coming up as well over in Ohio. They
ain't the new kid on the block. Firestone Country Club
(03:57):
been around for a while hosting the senior PGA Tour
players in a couple of weeks. So a lot to
talk about today. So the US Open once again returns
to the hallowed grounds of Oakmont outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
(04:21):
What a week it's going to be. I mean, first
of all, you ain't get me near Route twenty eight
anywhere near Oaka months this week. Before we even get
into mentioning the names that we'll be here this week
trying to conquer the beasts that is Oakmont. First of all,
(04:42):
I want to give you a reference. I've played Oakmont
five six times. Again. I just got back from Scotland
on some of the greatest courses in the world. You've
heard of Mirfield, Well I got to stand on Mirfield,
didn't get to play it, but I was in St
Andrews for a week down to the East Lothian, Scotland's
(05:03):
golf coast. That's everything east of Edinburgh, Scotland. There's twenty
one golf courses there that are just unbelievable. You could
move there, retire there and play those twenty one golf
courses the rest of your life and in Scotland's golf
coast and you would die a very very happy golfer.
(05:26):
But I've had the honor to play Oaklant several times. Again,
I don't even remember five or six. Oakmont is as
good as they tilted to be. And again you're talking
to somebody that just played the best golf courses in
the world in April in Ireland, Northern Ireland, Jamison Links
(05:50):
you name it, Dumbarney, the number one new golf course
in the world there in Saint Andrews. Oakmont is as
good as they say. Oakmont is as good as those courses.
Oakmont is as good as Royal Port Rush, where the
Open Championship will be played in July. That's how good
(06:12):
Oakmont is. But it's really there's a couple backstories with
Oaklant that we'll talk about. First of all, the founder,
the builder, the architect, Henry C. Phones from Pittsburgh, born
in eighteen fifty six, so that's roughly ten years before
(06:33):
the beginning of the Civil War. He hung around with
guys like Andrew Carnegie, right, and it's believed that Andrew
Carnegie was the one that introduced eight C Phones to
the game of golf. Obviously with Carnegie's tie to Scotland.
(06:54):
Obviously with the game's lineage, Scotland was in his mind
and he became a fanatic fanatic. You know. They played
the Highland Country Club here in Pittsburgh, small nine hole course,
you know. But along the way, Phones said, you know what,
(07:18):
I got some money. I got some money. Let's make
it rain damn dollar bills when a dollar bill was
worth like forty bucks compared to today. In the spring
of nineteen oh three, Phones bought one hundred and ninety
one acres of land overlooking the borough of Oakmont. He
(07:40):
formed the Oakland Land Company Oakmont Oakmont Land Company, got
a bunch of his friends to invest, because you never
spend your own money on a project, and they bought
one hundred and ninety one acres in Oakmont for seventy
eight thousand, five hundred dollars. Said that right in nineteen
(08:03):
oh three, they spent seventy eight thousand dollars to buy
the one hundred and ninety one acres that now is Oakmont.
It's roughly two point five million in today's dollars, and
the birth of Oakmont began. What did Phones do? Did
(08:23):
he call the architects of the day to come and
tell him what he was going to build on his
one hundred and ninety one acres. No, that's not what
he did.
Speaker 9 (08:39):
He went about to build his own golf course, his
own golf course. He'd been to Scotland, he'd seen the courses,
his vision, and I am here to tell you because
I just played the best links courses in the world
(09:00):
in Scotland in Ireland, and you can too time out here.
If you want to win a trip to Saint Andrews,
log on to USA Scotland Golf dot com, USA Scotland
Golf dot com, USA Scotland Golf dot com. Learn about
Team USA versus Team Scotland. Amateur Golf Championships are National
(09:20):
Championships are in Canton, Ohio, August to twenty twenty five.
Speaker 7 (09:26):
Opening ceremonies in the Hall of Fame. Wear cutwater. Here
we go. Here's some cutwater right now. Oh yeah, hold on,
oh Mando. If you don't know cutwater spirits yet, they're
like the number one canned ready to drink. They used
tequil in vodka. They don't mix them. They got all
(09:49):
kind of flavors. Anyway, if you come to Canton, Ohio
to compete to try to win the chance to go
to Scotland, we have opening ceremonies at the Hall of Fame,
cutwater spirits afterwards at the Brew Kettle Indoor driving range
right across from the Hall of Fame and all the
cutwater you can possibly drink. Then play two of the
(10:11):
very best golf courses in Campton, Ohio. Five flight winners,
no USGA handicap needed will be crowns. You will win
the Sword of Champions that is our trophy, and you'll
win a trip to Saint Andrews, Scotland and you'll play
the best links courses in the world again. Log onto
(10:32):
USA Scotland Golf dot com to learn out more. Send
me an email our emails on there say hey, tank,
I want to play in that team US eight thing
and play to go to Scotland. Back to Oakmont, nineteen hundreds,
one hundred and fifty men and two dozen horses and
(10:54):
mules set out to build hc phones Dream his grand
design of Oakmont. They hand dug the first twelve holes
in six weeks. Then they had to stop because old
man Winter said eight now those other six holes would
(11:15):
have to wait. The course opened for play October first,
nineteen oh four, Part eighty. They gotta remember the kind
of clubs they were playing with, right, And if you've
never hit a hickory stick, if you've never heard hit
a perch of gutter ball, you don't know what golf
is and you don't appreciate it. And for you kids
(11:38):
that think Tiger Woods is the greatest golfer of all time.
You're out of your mind. He played with technology that
was tailor made with titanium and whatever to master. His
clubs and his golf balls were things of beauty. Ain't
no way Tiger's beaten Jack Nicholas. If they played twenty times,
(12:02):
Jack is winning seventeen. That's my opinion anyway. Part eighty
when it opened in nineteen nineteen oh four was Oakmont
six four hundred and six yards, which was a beast
with hickory sticks. Again, if you've never hit one, fine time,
join the Golf Heritage Society. They'll teach you all about
(12:25):
it again. It was designed as an inland links course,
styled after the great courses in Great Britain. Phones had
gone there, he played them. He knew what links golf was.
The course he designed, the course that one hundred and
(12:48):
fifty men and a bunch of horses and mules laid out.
That opened in nineteen ought to four, today in twenty
twenty five, will be the bane of it existence for
any golfer, amateur or pro that tease it up this
coming week at Oakmont. I remember the last time it
(13:13):
came through town. The open you know, the fairways and
the greens are topic. The rough at Oakmont is conversation
for topic. We'll get into some of that in the
second segment. It's the sand traps. The sand traps that
(13:41):
had guys like vjsinh writing. The special rake they use
at Oakmont to rake the traps is the same rakes
design that was used in nineteen oh four. It provides
a deep think of a long rake. Okay, what's it
go down? Now? Maybe an inch? These things have teeth
(14:05):
like a saber tooth tiger, like two feet wide. Is
the rake three to four inches down? Goes those teeth
on the rakes. It creates mayhem in the greens in
the plot, bunkers and the bunkers. Not even to mention
(14:29):
the famous church pews. What was Thorn's thinking when the
church pews. Yeah, this is what we're gonna do. We're
gonna build like a forty yard long sand trap, I
don't know, twenty feet wide, and we're gonna put rows
(14:52):
of grass mounding with fescue in it to trap the balls. Well,
that'll drive the golfer insane. Yeah, whatever, it's golf. Hit
the ball. The traps at Oakmont are incredible. Everything about
(15:15):
Oakmont is incredible. Hey, you're listening to Randy the Tank
Tantlinger here on Fox Sports Net Radio. iHeart podcasts nationally, nationally,
well internationally too. I got a good buddy Abbey. He
lives up there in reconpect, Iceland High Abbey. It's June.
I hope you're not freezing yet. Actually, if you want
(15:36):
to go to a really cool golf country, go to Iceland.
You can golf in a volcano. I've been there, telling
you ain't golf well, but I got the golf in
a volcano with basically what the Arnold Palmer of icelandic golf.
That's a story for another day. I was a little
bit hungover, all right. When we get back, we'll talk
(15:57):
more a little bit about Oakmont and the scene your
PGA coming over there to the venerable Firestone Country Club.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Discover America's playing Field, home to the iconic Pro Football
Hall of Fame and the growing Hall of Fame Village.
Explore a vibrant city filled with award winning dining options,
exciting events, and entertainment.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Find it here in America's playing Field.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Connect with visit Canton for personalized assistance planning an unforgettable.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
Tread Planning a golf trip to Scotland. Take a look
at Scotland's golf coast. With twenty one golf courses or
within twenty minutes for each other, this is the greatest
concentration of championship links golf courses in the world. Scotland's
Golf Coast offers courses for all abilities, from flagship courses
(16:54):
Millfield and North Berwick, must play courses Dunbar and Gullen
and hidden gems including the Glen. There's a wide range
of accommodation, many offerings day and play golf packages and
with Edham of just thirty minutes away, the area provides
everything for a golf trip. Check out the area on
Scotland'sgolf Coast dot.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Com discover America's Playing Field, home to the iconic Pro
Football Hall of Fame and the growing Hall of Fame Village.
Explore a vibrant city filled with award winning dining options,
exciting events and entertainment.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Find it here in America's Playing Field.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Connect with visit Canton for personal lives assistance, Planning an
unforgettable trip.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Planning a golf trip to Scotland.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
Take a look at Scotland's Golf Coast, with twenty one
golf courses or within twenty minutes for each other. This
is the greatest concentration of championship links golf courses in
the world. Scotland's Golf Coast offers courses for all abilities,
from flagship courses Millfield and North Berwick, must play courses
Dunbar and Gullen and hidden gems including the Glen and Gifford.
(18:11):
There's a wide range of accommodation, many offerings down play
golf packages and with Edham of just thirty minutes away,
the area provides everything for your golf trip. Check out
the area on Scotland's Golf Coast dot com.
Speaker 5 (18:26):
Visit get Ohios, precents, golflin a realm.
Speaker 7 (18:33):
Concert by.
Speaker 6 (18:36):
Squares Golf Shoes, change your shoes, change of games, Team
USA versus Team Scotland, Amateur Golf Championships Amateur Golfers.
Speaker 5 (18:48):
You can win a trip to Savors Scotland, Ahead Golf Hats,
Golfer Perl Kuggans Golf Resorts, Minnesota, is Golf Paradise, Super Stroke,
cottege Grin, the choice of champions Scotland. This golf coach
(19:12):
discovered twenty one in Scotland's best course.
Speaker 10 (19:16):
Visit Ohio, Ohio. It's called Tapahole. Hey, welcome back to
the Golfing Around Radio Hour. I'm Randy the tank Taantlinger.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Wow.
Speaker 7 (19:31):
Talking about Oakmont, the US Open, the history of Oakmont.
We're gonna be talking a little bit in this segment
as well about the wonderful Firestone Country Club in Ohio
hosting the Senior PGA Championship. But before we do that,
we were talking a little bit about how Henry Phones,
who designed and owned Oakland Country Club, premised his design
(19:55):
on the beautiful courses in Scotland. Well, you could win
it trip to St Andrews, Scotland. You the amateur golfer,
I don't care. If you're really good are really bad
like me? I don't care. You don't need a USGA handicap.
Log onto USA Scotland Golf dot Com, USA Scotland Golf
(20:15):
dot Com, USA Scotland Golf dot Com. There you're gonna
find out information about Team USA versus Team Scotland Amateur
Golf Championships. This is our fourth year running the tournament.
We've now taken three teams Amateur Golfers Team USA to
(20:37):
stand on the hallow grounds of St. Andrews and get
their picture taken on the swil Cambridge in front of
the RNA. That could be you. You don't need a
USGA handicap to play in one of five flights one
to five, six to ten, Final Flight twenty one and
over in Canton, Ohio at the end of all August.
(21:01):
Come play in the Team USA National Championships. You got
nothing to lose. It's only two hundred and fifty five
dollars to play and you get your money's worth opening
ceremonies in the Hall of Fame. Cutwater Spirits. As a sponsor,
you're gonna play two competitive rounds the Quarry golf Course,
(21:24):
Glenmore Country Club. You don't need a USGA handicap. Go
to our rules page explains how we eliminate cheating and sandbagging.
Bottom line is what you score. What you shoot is
where the flight you get placed in. So if you
tell me you're sixteen, but by the end of two
rounds you shot at a nine handicap, that's where you
(21:45):
get scored. It's really simple. That's how we eliminate cheating.
Log on a USA Scotland golf dot com to learn
how you can win a trip.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
So HC.
Speaker 7 (21:58):
Phones and his boys buy Oaklawn one hundred and ninety
one acres nineteen oh one for seventy eight thousand dollars,
they'd go to work. By nineteen oh four they're opening
up the six thousand, four hundred and six yards Part
eighty at Oaklant that incredible clubhouse now, which is just remarkable.
(22:27):
It was modeled by Pittsburgh architect Edward Stoates after a
traditional Scottish farmhouse. Don't forget Phones was introduced to golf
by Andrew Carnegie of Scotland. Originally Phones had been to
Scotland fell in love with the game. When it was done,
(22:47):
it cost thirty eight thousand dollars, so basically a million dollars.
Quite impressive, quite impressive. It has been an honor for
Oakmont to host prestigious golf events throughout the years, obviously
(23:13):
the Western Pennsylvania Open Championships and Amateur Championships. Since nineteen nineteen,
Oakmont has hosted twenty national championships, three collegiate championships. On
top of that, it has hosted a record nine US Open,
(23:34):
six US Amateur Championships, three PGA Championships, two US Women's Opens.
That's pretty remarkable. That's pretty remarkable. In nineteen fifty three,
(24:00):
the US Open Oakmont underwent a dramatic change. The New
Yorker magazine writer Warren Wind called Oakmont an ugly, old
brute of a course, and it was it is now.
(24:20):
I want to explain something. When Phones designed Oakmont, it
was premised upon the courses he had visited in Scotland
that were links courses. He imagined a Lynk's course right
there in Oakmont, and that's what he built. That's what
it resembles. If you've ever gotten a chance to play
(24:42):
true links course and you play Oakmont, you're like, yeah,
this is a Lynks golf course. The only thing or
missing is in the North Atlantic or the Irish Sea
beside it to make it really a Lynks course. And
I'll throw in sand dens, massive sand dunes. I just
played Port Stewart golf Course up in Northern Ireland and man,
(25:06):
at times it was like massive giants were standing along
the faaraways. The dunes were fifty feet high. So with
the exception of ocean and large sand duns. But a
funny thing happened. Oakmont eventually would grow close to five
(25:29):
thousand trees. They were planted and it was transformed into
traditional American park parkland golf course. They continued to grow,
they got higher and higher. Along the way, open championships came.
(25:51):
US Open championships came. Then a few years ago the
old ugly nasty brute reappeared again as Oakmont cut down
five thousand trees in the additional ten thousand that had grown.
(26:19):
Imagine that. Imagine that prior to the two thousand and
seven US opened and an Oakmont, the trees were removed.
I wrote a story at the time that I loved it.
It was like a marine getting a haircut. Remember the
(26:42):
writer called it a big, ugly, nasty brute. Well, after
fifteen ten to fifteen thousand trees got cut down at Oakmont,
it was a marine with its head shaved tight and
its links appearance came back. Now I could always see it,
(27:08):
But after the trees came down and I played it.
If you dropped Oakmont along the sand dunes of the
North Sea in Saint Andrew's right, there beside the greats,
the old course down Barney kings, barns, Carnousti. You would
(27:29):
think it always lived there. We talked a little bit
in the first segment about the sand traps and the
grooved rakes used to create those valleys that balls get
stuck in in the sand traps that VJ. Singh. But
(27:53):
to understand the word brute and how it applies to Oakmont,
you've got to talk about the greens. You got to
talk about the rough you have to talk about the fairways.
The Stemp meter is used to gauge how fast a
(28:17):
green is rolling. For example, a four and a Stemp meter,
that's pretty darn slow. When you get into ten, eleven, twelve,
they're moving. Oakmont is like playing and putting on glass.
And what makes the green so treacherous is gravity. You
(28:42):
remember old Isaac Newton gotten a hit in the head
with a coconut or a walnut or grape nut, a banana,
I don't know what it was. I'm going with coconut
and he's like, wow, what made that coconut whack me
in my coconut? A thing called gravity. The way the
(29:03):
greens are designed at Oakmont, not only are they rolled
as tight and hard and fast as they can be,
but the speed works against you because of gravity, because
(29:25):
the sloping on the greens. They're not just flat greens.
There are slopes in them that causes the ball on
all eighteen for gravity to grab your ball, blow it
(29:49):
by the hole and pull it back down into the fairway.
The greens at Oakmont are lightning. They are anxiety. They
are a test of any golfer skill. Let alone the
(30:09):
rough at Oakmont. Now you'll complain at your local golf
course if the rough you know, this grass off the fairway.
In case you don't know what the rough is, you're
more on is I mean, if it's highering two inches,
you're crying. You're like, why didn't they cut this? It
(30:30):
almost feels when you play. And I'm telling you the
USGA will let the rough go this week and it's
raining today on Friday before that grass is gonna grow.
They ain't gonna cut it in the rough. It could
be four inches high, five inches high. If you know golf,
(30:55):
you know what that does to the hozzle. You know
what it does to the cub. The younger golfers that
have never experienced Oakmont's, well, their pride, their hubris is
gonna get in the way and they're gonna think I'm
gonna muscle this thing out of the rough and get
(31:18):
it back into the fairway. If you tried to remember,
Nasty Brute is Oakmont's nickname. If you dare try out
brooding the Brute of all brute golf courses, your nozzle
is gonna get stuck, your club face is gonna turn,
(31:40):
and if you thought you were gonna bang that thing
out of there at one hundred and forty yards, you'll
be crying when suddenly that ball kareem's a hard right.
If you're in the left fairway going at the green
and the ball kreenes to the right at a right angle. Hey,
(32:04):
you're listening to the golf around radio hour. I'm Randy
the Tank Tantlinger. Log onto USA Scotland Golf dot com
to learn how you can win a trip to Saint Andrews.
We'll be right back
Discover America's Playing Field, home to the iconic Pro Football
Hall of Fame and the growing Hall of Fame Village.
Explore a vibrant city filled with award winning dining options,
exciting events and entertainment.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Find it here in America's Playing Field.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Connect would visit Canton for personal lives assistance planning an unforgettable.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Trend planning a golf trip to Scotland.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
Take a look at Scotland's golf Coast, with twenty one
golf courses or within twenty minutes for each other. This
is the greatest concentration of championship links golf courses in
the world. Scotland's Golf Coast offers courses for all abilities,
from flagship courses Millfield and North Berwick, must play courses
Dunbar and Gullen and hidden gems including the Glen and Gifford.
(00:55):
There's a wide range of accommodation, many offerings, day and
play golf packages and with Him are just thirty minutes away.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
The area provides everything for your golf trip.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
Check out the area on Scotland's Golf Coast dot com.
Speaker 5 (01:10):
Visit Betton, Ohio presents golfing around sponsored by.
Speaker 6 (01:20):
Squares, golf shoes, change your shoes, change of games, Team
USA versus Team Scotland, Amateur Golf.
Speaker 5 (01:29):
Championships Amateur Golfers.
Speaker 7 (01:32):
You can win a trip to Saint Andrew's Scotland.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
Ahead Golf Hats and Golf of Para, Kuggans Golf Resorts,
Minnesota's Golf Paradise, Superstrub, Plotter's Ground, the Choice of.
Speaker 8 (01:52):
Champions, Scotland's Golf Coast Discovered twenty one of Scotland's plus
quarter is It's Ohio, Ohio's.
Speaker 7 (02:10):
Hello and welcome to the Golfing Around Radio Hour. I'm
your host, Randy the tank Tantlier. You can just call
me Tank, your golfing buddy. Yeah, you know that one
buddy that can't get off the t's. You know, you're
one buddy who just slices. You know that one buddy
that's like a twenty seven handicap.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
That's me.
Speaker 7 (02:29):
But I'm there for a good joke, a cold drink,
a cigar, a few bad shots, followed by a couple
chip shots, couple putts. Because I can putt, I can
drain them. I can drain putts with a beer in
my hand. John daily ing It I call it. Hey,
(02:49):
welcome to the golfing around radio hour. It's exciting week.
It is the beginning of US Open twenty five, America's
national championship. On a bizarre note, the Open Championship the
(03:10):
first one. You remember old Tom Morris and Merefield and
you know Presstwick and all that in Scotland. I'll talk
about that later on in the show that I got
to play royal Port Rush for the third time in
my life. Royal Port Rush home to the Open Championship
in Northern Ireland this year. Roy McElroy, yeah he played,
(03:36):
grew up playing on royal Port Rush. What do you
think the odds are? Anyway, it's an exciting show. It's
an exciting week for golf as things pick up. And
don't forget coming up as well over in Ohio. They
ain't the new kid on the block. Firestone Country Club
(03:57):
been around for a while hosting the senior PGA Tour
players in a couple of weeks. So a lot to
talk about today. So the US Open once again returns
to the hallowed grounds of Oakmont outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
(04:21):
What a week it's going to be. I mean, first
of all, you ain't get me near Route twenty eight
anywhere near Oaka months this week. Before we even get
into mentioning the names that we'll be here this week
trying to conquer the beasts that is Oakmont. First of all,
(04:42):
I want to give you a reference. I've played Oakmont
five six times. Again. I just got back from Scotland
on some of the greatest courses in the world. You've
heard of Mirfield, Well I got to stand on Mirfield,
didn't get to play it, but I was in St
Andrews for a week down to the East Lothian, Scotland's
(05:03):
golf coast. That's everything east of Edinburgh, Scotland. There's twenty
one golf courses there that are just unbelievable. You could
move there, retire there and play those twenty one golf
courses the rest of your life and in Scotland's golf
coast and you would die a very very happy golfer.
(05:26):
But I've had the honor to play Oaklant several times. Again,
I don't even remember five or six. Oakmont is as
good as they tilted to be. And again you're talking
to somebody that just played the best golf courses in
the world in April in Ireland, Northern Ireland, Jamison Links
(05:50):
you name it, Dumbarney, the number one new golf course
in the world there in Saint Andrews. Oakmont is as
good as they say. Oakmont is as good as those courses.
Oakmont is as good as Royal Port Rush, where the
Open Championship will be played in July. That's how good
(06:12):
Oakmont is. But it's really there's a couple backstories with
Oaklant that we'll talk about. First of all, the founder,
the builder, the architect, Henry C. Phones from Pittsburgh, born
in eighteen fifty six, so that's roughly ten years before
(06:33):
the beginning of the Civil War. He hung around with
guys like Andrew Carnegie, right, and it's believed that Andrew
Carnegie was the one that introduced eight C Phones to
the game of golf. Obviously with Carnegie's tie to Scotland.
(06:54):
Obviously with the game's lineage, Scotland was in his mind
and he became a fanatic fanatic. You know. They played
the Highland Country Club here in Pittsburgh, small nine hole course,
you know. But along the way, Phones said, you know what,
(07:18):
I got some money. I got some money. Let's make
it rain damn dollar bills when a dollar bill was
worth like forty bucks compared to today. In the spring
of nineteen oh three, Phones bought one hundred and ninety
one acres of land overlooking the borough of Oakmont. He
(07:40):
formed the Oakland Land Company Oakmont Oakmont Land Company, got
a bunch of his friends to invest, because you never
spend your own money on a project, and they bought
one hundred and ninety one acres in Oakmont for seventy
eight thousand, five hundred dollars. Said that right in nineteen
(08:03):
oh three, they spent seventy eight thousand dollars to buy
the one hundred and ninety one acres that now is Oakmont.
It's roughly two point five million in today's dollars, and
the birth of Oakmont began. What did Phones do? Did
(08:23):
he call the architects of the day to come and
tell him what he was going to build on his
one hundred and ninety one acres. No, that's not what
he did.
Speaker 9 (08:39):
He went about to build his own golf course, his
own golf course. He'd been to Scotland, he'd seen the courses,
his vision, and I am here to tell you because
I just played the best links courses in the world
(09:00):
in Scotland in Ireland, and you can too time out here.
If you want to win a trip to Saint Andrews,
log on to USA Scotland Golf dot com, USA Scotland
Golf dot com, USA Scotland Golf dot com. Learn about
Team USA versus Team Scotland. Amateur Golf Championships are National
(09:20):
Championships are in Canton, Ohio, August to twenty twenty five.
Speaker 7 (09:26):
Opening ceremonies in the Hall of Fame. Wear cutwater. Here
we go. Here's some cutwater right now. Oh yeah, hold on,
oh Mando. If you don't know cutwater spirits yet, they're
like the number one canned ready to drink. They used
tequil in vodka. They don't mix them. They got all
(09:49):
kind of flavors. Anyway, if you come to Canton, Ohio
to compete to try to win the chance to go
to Scotland, we have opening ceremonies at the Hall of Fame,
cutwater spirits afterwards at the Brew Kettle Indoor driving range
right across from the Hall of Fame and all the
cutwater you can possibly drink. Then play two of the
(10:11):
very best golf courses in Campton, Ohio. Five flight winners,
no USGA handicap needed will be crowns. You will win
the Sword of Champions that is our trophy, and you'll
win a trip to Saint Andrews, Scotland and you'll play
the best links courses in the world again. Log onto
(10:32):
USA Scotland Golf dot com to learn out more. Send
me an email our emails on there say hey, tank,
I want to play in that team US eight thing
and play to go to Scotland. Back to Oakmont, nineteen hundreds,
one hundred and fifty men and two dozen horses and
(10:54):
mules set out to build hc phones Dream his grand
design of Oakmont. They hand dug the first twelve holes
in six weeks. Then they had to stop because old
man Winter said eight now those other six holes would
(11:15):
have to wait. The course opened for play October first,
nineteen oh four, Part eighty. They gotta remember the kind
of clubs they were playing with, right, And if you've
never hit a hickory stick, if you've never heard hit
a perch of gutter ball, you don't know what golf
is and you don't appreciate it. And for you kids
(11:38):
that think Tiger Woods is the greatest golfer of all time.
You're out of your mind. He played with technology that
was tailor made with titanium and whatever to master. His
clubs and his golf balls were things of beauty. Ain't
no way Tiger's beaten Jack Nicholas. If they played twenty times,
(12:02):
Jack is winning seventeen. That's my opinion anyway. Part eighty
when it opened in nineteen nineteen oh four was Oakmont
six four hundred and six yards, which was a beast
with hickory sticks. Again, if you've never hit one, fine time,
join the Golf Heritage Society. They'll teach you all about
(12:25):
it again. It was designed as an inland links course,
styled after the great courses in Great Britain. Phones had
gone there, he played them. He knew what links golf was.
The course he designed, the course that one hundred and
(12:48):
fifty men and a bunch of horses and mules laid out.
That opened in nineteen ought to four, today in twenty
twenty five, will be the bane of it existence for
any golfer, amateur or pro that tease it up this
coming week at Oakmont. I remember the last time it
(13:13):
came through town. The open you know, the fairways and
the greens are topic. The rough at Oakmont is conversation
for topic. We'll get into some of that in the
second segment. It's the sand traps. The sand traps that
(13:41):
had guys like vjsinh writing. The special rake they use
at Oakmont to rake the traps is the same rakes
design that was used in nineteen oh four. It provides
a deep think of a long rake. Okay, what's it
go down? Now? Maybe an inch? These things have teeth
(14:05):
like a saber tooth tiger, like two feet wide. Is
the rake three to four inches down? Goes those teeth
on the rakes. It creates mayhem in the greens in
the plot, bunkers and the bunkers. Not even to mention
(14:29):
the famous church pews. What was Thorn's thinking when the
church pews. Yeah, this is what we're gonna do. We're
gonna build like a forty yard long sand trap, I
don't know, twenty feet wide, and we're gonna put rows
(14:52):
of grass mounding with fescue in it to trap the balls. Well,
that'll drive the golfer insane. Yeah, whatever, it's golf. Hit
the ball. The traps at Oakmont are incredible. Everything about
(15:15):
Oakmont is incredible. Hey, you're listening to Randy the Tank
Tantlinger here on Fox Sports Net Radio. iHeart podcasts nationally, nationally,
well internationally too. I got a good buddy Abbey. He
lives up there in reconpect, Iceland High Abbey. It's June.
I hope you're not freezing yet. Actually, if you want
(15:36):
to go to a really cool golf country, go to Iceland.
You can golf in a volcano. I've been there, telling
you ain't golf well, but I got the golf in
a volcano with basically what the Arnold Palmer of icelandic golf.
That's a story for another day. I was a little
bit hungover, all right. When we get back, we'll talk
(15:57):
more a little bit about Oakmont and the scene your
PGA coming over there to the venerable Firestone Country Club.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
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Speaker 4 (16:30):
Tread Planning a golf trip to Scotland. Take a look
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within twenty minutes for each other, this is the greatest
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(16:54):
Millfield and North Berwick, must play courses Dunbar and Gullen
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Speaker 1 (17:12):
Com discover America's Playing Field, home to the iconic Pro
Football Hall of Fame and the growing Hall of Fame Village.
Explore a vibrant city filled with award winning dining options,
exciting events and entertainment.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Find it here in America's Playing Field.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Connect with visit Canton for personal lives assistance, Planning an
unforgettable trip.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Planning a golf trip to Scotland.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
Take a look at Scotland's Golf Coast, with twenty one
golf courses or within twenty minutes for each other. This
is the greatest concentration of championship links golf courses in
the world. Scotland's Golf Coast offers courses for all abilities,
from flagship courses Millfield and North Berwick, must play courses
Dunbar and Gullen and hidden gems including the Glen and Gifford.
(18:11):
There's a wide range of accommodation, many offerings down play
golf packages and with Edham of just thirty minutes away,
the area provides everything for your golf trip. Check out
the area on Scotland's Golf Coast dot com.
Speaker 5 (18:26):
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Squares Golf Shoes, change your shoes, change of games, Team
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You can win a trip to Savors Scotland, Ahead Golf Hats,
Golfer Perl Kuggans Golf Resorts, Minnesota, is Golf Paradise, Super Stroke,
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(19:12):
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Speaker 10 (19:16):
Visit Ohio, Ohio. It's called Tapahole. Hey, welcome back to
the Golfing Around Radio Hour. I'm Randy the tank Taantlinger.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Wow.
Speaker 7 (19:31):
Talking about Oakmont, the US Open, the history of Oakmont.
We're gonna be talking a little bit in this segment
as well about the wonderful Firestone Country Club in Ohio
hosting the Senior PGA Championship. But before we do that,
we were talking a little bit about how Henry Phones,
who designed and owned Oakland Country Club, premised his design
(19:55):
on the beautiful courses in Scotland. Well, you could win
it trip to St Andrews, Scotland. You the amateur golfer,
I don't care. If you're really good are really bad
like me? I don't care. You don't need a USGA handicap.
Log onto USA Scotland Golf dot Com, USA Scotland Golf
(20:15):
dot Com, USA Scotland Golf dot Com. There you're gonna
find out information about Team USA versus Team Scotland Amateur
Golf Championships. This is our fourth year running the tournament.
We've now taken three teams Amateur Golfers Team USA to
(20:37):
stand on the hallow grounds of St. Andrews and get
their picture taken on the swil Cambridge in front of
the RNA. That could be you. You don't need a
USGA handicap to play in one of five flights one
to five, six to ten, Final Flight twenty one and
over in Canton, Ohio at the end of all August.
(21:01):
Come play in the Team USA National Championships. You got
nothing to lose. It's only two hundred and fifty five
dollars to play and you get your money's worth opening
ceremonies in the Hall of Fame. Cutwater Spirits. As a sponsor,
you're gonna play two competitive rounds the Quarry golf Course,
(21:24):
Glenmore Country Club. You don't need a USGA handicap. Go
to our rules page explains how we eliminate cheating and sandbagging.
Bottom line is what you score. What you shoot is
where the flight you get placed in. So if you
tell me you're sixteen, but by the end of two
rounds you shot at a nine handicap, that's where you
(21:45):
get scored. It's really simple. That's how we eliminate cheating.
Log on a USA Scotland golf dot com to learn
how you can win a trip.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
So HC.
Speaker 7 (21:58):
Phones and his boys buy Oaklawn one hundred and ninety
one acres nineteen oh one for seventy eight thousand dollars,
they'd go to work. By nineteen oh four they're opening
up the six thousand, four hundred and six yards Part
eighty at Oaklant that incredible clubhouse now, which is just remarkable.
(22:27):
It was modeled by Pittsburgh architect Edward Stoates after a
traditional Scottish farmhouse. Don't forget Phones was introduced to golf
by Andrew Carnegie of Scotland. Originally Phones had been to
Scotland fell in love with the game. When it was done,
(22:47):
it cost thirty eight thousand dollars, so basically a million dollars.
Quite impressive, quite impressive. It has been an honor for
Oakmont to host prestigious golf events throughout the years, obviously
(23:13):
the Western Pennsylvania Open Championships and Amateur Championships. Since nineteen nineteen,
Oakmont has hosted twenty national championships, three collegiate championships. On
top of that, it has hosted a record nine US Open,
(23:34):
six US Amateur Championships, three PGA Championships, two US Women's Opens.
That's pretty remarkable. That's pretty remarkable. In nineteen fifty three,
(24:00):
the US Open Oakmont underwent a dramatic change. The New
Yorker magazine writer Warren Wind called Oakmont an ugly, old
brute of a course, and it was it is now.
(24:20):
I want to explain something. When Phones designed Oakmont, it
was premised upon the courses he had visited in Scotland
that were links courses. He imagined a Lynk's course right
there in Oakmont, and that's what he built. That's what
it resembles. If you've ever gotten a chance to play
(24:42):
true links course and you play Oakmont, you're like, yeah,
this is a Lynks golf course. The only thing or
missing is in the North Atlantic or the Irish Sea
beside it to make it really a Lynks course. And
I'll throw in sand dens, massive sand dunes. I just
played Port Stewart golf Course up in Northern Ireland and man,
(25:06):
at times it was like massive giants were standing along
the faaraways. The dunes were fifty feet high. So with
the exception of ocean and large sand duns. But a
funny thing happened. Oakmont eventually would grow close to five
(25:29):
thousand trees. They were planted and it was transformed into
traditional American park parkland golf course. They continued to grow,
they got higher and higher. Along the way, open championships came.
(25:51):
US Open championships came. Then a few years ago the
old ugly nasty brute reappeared again as Oakmont cut down
five thousand trees in the additional ten thousand that had grown.
(26:19):
Imagine that. Imagine that prior to the two thousand and
seven US opened and an Oakmont, the trees were removed.
I wrote a story at the time that I loved it.
It was like a marine getting a haircut. Remember the
(26:42):
writer called it a big, ugly, nasty brute. Well, after
fifteen ten to fifteen thousand trees got cut down at Oakmont,
it was a marine with its head shaved tight and
its links appearance came back. Now I could always see it,
(27:08):
But after the trees came down and I played it.
If you dropped Oakmont along the sand dunes of the
North Sea in Saint Andrew's right, there beside the greats,
the old course down Barney kings, barns, Carnousti. You would
(27:29):
think it always lived there. We talked a little bit
in the first segment about the sand traps and the
grooved rakes used to create those valleys that balls get
stuck in in the sand traps that VJ. Singh. But
(27:53):
to understand the word brute and how it applies to Oakmont,
you've got to talk about the greens. You got to
talk about the rough you have to talk about the fairways.
The Stemp meter is used to gauge how fast a
(28:17):
green is rolling. For example, a four and a Stemp meter,
that's pretty darn slow. When you get into ten, eleven, twelve,
they're moving. Oakmont is like playing and putting on glass.
And what makes the green so treacherous is gravity. You
(28:42):
remember old Isaac Newton gotten a hit in the head
with a coconut or a walnut or grape nut, a banana,
I don't know what it was. I'm going with coconut
and he's like, wow, what made that coconut whack me
in my coconut? A thing called gravity. The way the
(29:03):
greens are designed at Oakmont, not only are they rolled
as tight and hard and fast as they can be,
but the speed works against you because of gravity, because
(29:25):
the sloping on the greens. They're not just flat greens.
There are slopes in them that causes the ball on
all eighteen for gravity to grab your ball, blow it
(29:49):
by the hole and pull it back down into the fairway.
The greens at Oakmont are lightning. They are anxiety. They
are a test of any golfer skill. Let alone the
(30:09):
rough at Oakmont. Now you'll complain at your local golf
course if the rough you know, this grass off the fairway.
In case you don't know what the rough is, you're
more on is I mean, if it's highering two inches,
you're crying. You're like, why didn't they cut this? It
(30:30):
almost feels when you play. And I'm telling you the
USGA will let the rough go this week and it's
raining today on Friday before that grass is gonna grow.
They ain't gonna cut it in the rough. It could
be four inches high, five inches high. If you know golf,
(30:55):
you know what that does to the hozzle. You know
what it does to the cub. The younger golfers that
have never experienced Oakmont's, well, their pride, their hubris is
gonna get in the way and they're gonna think I'm
gonna muscle this thing out of the rough and get
(31:18):
it back into the fairway. If you tried to remember,
Nasty Brute is Oakmont's nickname. If you dare try out
brooding the Brute of all brute golf courses, your nozzle
is gonna get stuck, your club face is gonna turn,
(31:40):
and if you thought you were gonna bang that thing
out of there at one hundred and forty yards, you'll
be crying when suddenly that ball kareem's a hard right.
If you're in the left fairway going at the green
and the ball kreenes to the right at a right angle. Hey,
(32:04):
you're listening to the golf around radio hour. I'm Randy
the Tank Tantlinger. Log onto USA Scotland Golf dot com
to learn how you can win a trip to Saint Andrews.
We'll be right back
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