Oakmont Country Club

Henry Fownes built one golf course in his life. He spent a year on old farmland north-east of Pittsburgh with a crew of 150 men and under two dozen mule teams, and Oakmont opened in 1903. Ten U.S. Opens have been played here: Tommy Armour in 1927, Sam Parks Jr. in 1935, Ben Hogan in 1953, Jack Nicklaus in 1962, Johnny Miller in 1973, Larry Nelson in 1983, Ernie Els in 1994, Ángel Cabrera in 2007, Dustin Johnson in 2016 and J.J. Spaun in 2025. Add three PGA Championships, six U.S. Amateurs and two U.S. Women's Opens, the last won by Paula Creamer in 2010.

The Church Pews sit between the third and fourth fairways: one bunker about 100 yards by 40, with thirteen grass ridges running across it. Get in and the ridge in front decides what you can play. The Pennsylvania Turnpike cuts the property in two, with holes two through eight on the far side, and the eighth green was shifted several yards left in the late 1940s to make room for it. The club's card runs 7,431 yards, par 71, and 70 for the U.S. Open; the 2025 championship card totalled 7,372, with the eighth a par three of 289. Trees planted in the 1950s and 1960s have been taken out again, between 5,000 and 8,000 in the 2007 work alone.