The SOCIETY Newsletter #73

The Furrowed Bunkers of Oakmont:

A Story of Purposeful Punishment

Oakmont Country Club is not for the faint of heart. Nestled among the rolling hills just outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, it’s a cathedral of American golf—host to more U.S. Open Championships than any other course in the country. Its greens are fast, its rough is thick, and its fairways demand perfection. But even among all of Oakmont’s punishing elements, none struck fear or fascination, like the furrowed bunker once did.

To the uninitiated, a bunker is a bunker—an expanse of sand meant to punish wayward shots and test a golfer’s nerve. But at Oakmont, these sandy hazards used to be something far more sinister. They were a product of intent, not neglect… raked not with care, but with cruelty.

Born of a Steel Magnate’s Mind

Henry Clay Fownes, Oakmont’s founder and architect, was not a trained golf designer. He was a steel magnate. Precision, discipline, and control were his gospel—and he brought them all to bear on the game of golf. Fownes wanted a course that tested every shot and punished every mistake. He believed golf was a game of consequences.

So he carved Oakmont into the farmland north of Pittsburgh with an engineer’s eye and a Puritan’s sense of fairness. And the bunkers? They would not be passive traps. They would be aggressive. Vindictive. Fownes introduced furrows—deep, harsh rake lines running perpendicular deep  into river sand to the line of play. Not just aesthetic, they were strategic, designed to guarantee uneven lies, awkward stances, and penalizing exits.

“Hazards Should Be Hazardous”

The furrowed bunkers at Oakmont became legendary. Rather than smoothing the sand after play, maintenance staff would drag metal-toothed rakes across each bunker, creating ridges that could grab a ball and hold it hostage. Golfers might land safely in a bunker but find their ball nestled between two furrows, on the downslope of a ridge, or in an unplayable stance. It wasn’t enough to find the sand—you had to be lucky once you were in it.

Bobby Jones Argument against the Furrows

The method was ruthless—and so were the scores. Bobby Jones called them unfair and actually wrote an article that was published nationwide on the subject- below are excepts from that article:

“At Oakmont and at Minikahda a shot into a bunker meant simply and positively a lost stroke inless a long puts happened to go down. There was no amount of skill in bunker play which would avail.

The only fault in the theory is to be found In the regrettabie circumstance that on even our very best days we are all intensely human, and no matter how well we may play, we must make a few bad shots. And no matter how hard we may strive for perfection we cannot eliminate from the game that part of it which is played within the confines of the sandtraps. It may be all very well to determine that skill with the tee and fairway clubs te the highest type and that such skill should reng the greatest reward, but the fact remains that when that element of skill is eliminated necessary department of the game, the game itself is weakened by just so much.

The Oakmont furrows seemed to say, "Well, here you are in a bunker and it doesn't matter how good you are or how much nerve you have, the only thing you can do now is blast.”

I should never care to argue for anything which would lessen the difficulty at the game, for its difficulty is its greatest charm, but when, in seeking to preserve the difficulty and to make scoring as hard as it was in the old days, in spite of the vast improvement in the ball, we make the mistake of destroying the effect of skill and judgment in an important department. I cannot help protesting. I am, of course, open to be convinced that a ball can be played as artistically from a furrow as from wind-blown sand, and if the raking is to continue. I should very much like to be so convinced. But until then I cannot help thinking that the practice Is hurting the game.”

Controversy and Tradition

The first major blow to Oakmont’s infamous furrowed bunkers came in the lead-up to the 1953 U.S. Open, when a group of rebellious players threatened to take a stand. According to Oakmont Country Club historian Dave Moore, it’s possible that Lloyd Mangrum led the charge against the Fownes family’s brutal sand trenches—bunkers so penal they were said to punish both poor shots and sheer misfortune.

Mangrum and several others reportedly threatened to boycott the championship if the furrows remained in play. Faced with the possibility of a diminished field, the USGA struck a compromise: the furrows would be removed from fairway bunkers but left in place around the greens.

That concession, however small, proved fatal. By the time Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer squared off in their legendary duel at the 1962 U.S. Open, the furrows were gone—erased from the course and from competitive memory. What began as a small surrender to player pressure had, within a decade, marked the end of one of Oakmont’s most feared defenses. I promise you - no professional golfer shed a tear.

The Resurrection from the Dead

For a fleeting moment in modern times, the legend of Oakmont’s furrows was brought back to life. Between 2017 and 2018, the club resurrected the distinctive raked ridges in the bunker left of the 14th green—a respectful homage to its rugged past. It was a short-lived but brilliant revival, a tribute to Fownes’ furious vision that bunkers should be true hazards, not mere aesthetic features.

But nostalgia alone couldn’t justify the singular application. After a couple of seasons, it was decided that one furrowed bunker—isolated from the rest—lacked both competitive consistency and architectural harmony. And so, the furrows quietly faded once again into the annals of history, their ghost lingering only in memory and myth.

But Oakmont never forgot its identity.

When the U.S. Open returns to Oakmont this month, the furrowed bunkers will remain buried in history—but in their place, a new test awaits. Gil Hanse’s renovation has introduced flat-bottomed bunkers, deceptively simple in appearance but no less exacting in effect. Around the greens, they may prove relatively forgiving. But from the fairway? They’ll demand precision, punishing anything less.

It’s a subtle shift in style, but not in spirit. Because Oakmont, at its core, has never been a resort—it’s a crucible. A proving ground. A rite of passage where the margin for error is razor-thin, and the game’s bravest are forged by its quiet cruelty.

More Than Sand

The furrowed bunkers of Oakmont were more than a maintenance style. They were philosophy rendered in topography. A message from Fownes to every golfer who walks his fairways: Perfection is expected. Forgiveness is not guaranteed.

And that, perhaps, is what makes Oakmont timeless. In an era where courses soften and standards relax, Oakmont still speaks with the stern, unyielding voice of its founder—etched not in stone, but in sand.

An Official Account of Oakmont’s Difficulty by Gene Sarazen:

“I was partly responsible for the selection of Oakmont for the 1935 champfonship. An official of the United States Golf Association asked me where the 1935 American Open should be played, I had a warm spot In my heart for Oakmont, and suggested that course.This evidently was also the opinion of the golf council, which decided to hold the Open there.

Mr. Fownes, on behalf of his club, accepted the invitation of the council, and immediately set about trying to make the course still harder. New bunkers were added-not the ordinary type of bunker, but those furrowed creations which are so unfair because it is difficult to get more than 50 feet from them. I was in a fog when I saw the course. Bunkers were everywhere.

Some idea of the fetish for making the Oakmont course difficult was shown by one incident. The seventh hole had been well trapped, but in a practice round Ray Mangrum. one of the longest hitters in the game. hooked his tee shot and it carried a bunker set to catch these hooked tee shots. That night the foreman of the course telephoned to Mr. Fownes in a town a 1000 miles away, and told him of the prodigious drive of Mangrum.

"Put a trap in where the ball landed" was the reply of Mr. Fownes.

So the next day a gang went down to put in another bunker, about 15 yards ahead of the one Mangrum’s ball had cleared.

No one would object to a difficult course if the conditions were fair. But at Oakmont the officials excelled themselves, and as a result, the name of Oakmont will not again figure in the list of courses scheduled for the Open title. Fast sloping greens made it Impossible to hold the greens with shots from the furrowed traps.”

Fownes on the Professional Complainers

"Let the clumsy, the spineless, the alibi artist stand aside! When you are selecting the Open champion of the United States, the most prized golfing title in the world, why not put the highest premium on the title?"

-WC Fownes

Ted Ray and the Furrows of Oakmont

When Ted Ray played in 1927 US Open at Oakmont he couldn't find his ball in one furrow but finally remarked:

"Oh, yes, I see it - in row seven.”

Bobby Jones on Oakmont

"Finest course I ever played over. The greens are fast and very keen, keener than I am accustomed to, but they are true and accurate.”

— Bobby Jones

Chick Evans on Oakmont

“I consider Oakmont one of the three great courses in the world. There never was a course more packed with variety."

— Chick Evans

Walter Hagen on Oakmont

“A lot of fellows are going to find out a few things when they get to the Open at Oakmont. They'll find out it's different than what they expected. Everybody claims Oakmont is the best course in the country for an Open, and it is a true test of ability. It's a good test all right.” Walter chuckled, "but the course is unfair for the best pros. Decidedly unfair, and I'll tell you why.

The traps are constructed in such a manner that they penalize all types of shots. The traps are corrugated, a mass of furrows. That's not right.

'Cause this is how it works. Many of the traps are just about 100 to 150 yards from the green.

Now when a fellow is that close, he is entitled to try for the flag, isn't he? Well, he doesn't get that chance at Oakmont. In those furrows the best he can do is take a niblick and pitch out on the fairway. He can't try for the pin. Now suppose a fellow plunks his ball in the front of the trap, he must expect a penalty. But take the fellow whose shot barely trickles into the sand, he should be in a position to "explode" out or use a semi explosion" shot. He can't do it from those furrows. Of course, there's one chance In a thousand that his ball will land on top of one of the riches. He's all set then. But that's a rarity.

What I'm trying to point out, is the fact that Oakmont penalizes a shot maker. Shot makers, you know, don't make their best shots from the fairways. The best shots come from traps and the rough. But the shot maker is going to have tough going in Oakmont’s traps.”

— Walter Hagen

Want to learn more about the history of Oakmont CC and its major championships?

Click on the link below to listen to the TalkinGolf History Podcast’s, History of Oakmont, Part 2.

Thank you for taking the time to read our newsletter. The U.S. Open at Oakmont is a mere week away. I hope you all are as excited as I am for the Open to be returning to its true home.

Yours in Golf History,

Connor T.