Local knowledge comes in handy on most courses, and Oakmont is no exception. But at this year’s U.S. Open host site, the value of inside information extends beyond the greens and fairways to other corners of the club. Consider, for instance, the locker rooms, where history runs deep and fun facts abound.
Here are six locker room-related details that make good stories around the bar — and a great video, too, which you can watch above or below on YouTube.
At its birth, Oakmont was a country club in the truest sense — a rural retreat whose membership largely arrived by train, hauling luggage for extended getaways. Oakmont’s lockers, among the largest of any club in the country, were built to accommodate that extra baggage. That additional space was particularly useful during Prohibition, when the club constructed lockers inside lockers, little built-in cubbies where members could stash their hooch. Those discrete storage holds remain a feature in every locker at the club today.
Every U.S. Open champion crowned at Oakmont has been honored with a locker at the club, which they share with a member. Those past champs include Ben Hogan, whose named is imprinted on a small metal plaque on locker No. 12. Unlike the other champions lockers, this was the actual locker that Hogan used when he won the U.S. Open in 1953. Aside from being a sweet swinger, Hogan was superstitious and insisted on using the same locker every time he returned.
The wooden benches in the men’s locker room, which have been around since the club opened, bear the spike marks of legendary players who have swapped their shoes at Oakmont, from Bobby Jones and Hogan to Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods. We’d add Scottie Scheffler to that list, but today’s soft-soled kicks don’t leave imprints like the metal-spiked footwear of old.
Women have been welcome at Oakmont from the start. And their lockers are built to the same specs as the men’s, with tawny wood and metal lattice for ventilation. But the women’s locker room itself has a cool feature that the men’s space lacks: it is air-conditioned. The men’s locker room isn’t, and, according to one club representative, likely never will be. Perhaps that’s only fitting for a membership that takes pride in playing one of the toughest courses in the world. At some level, these guys are masochists.
Cell phones are allowed in the locker room. But if you’re going to make a call, it’s politely requested that you duck into one of two phone booths, vestiges of bygone days that have been so well-preserved they still have actual phones inside them, attached to, get this, cords.
Oakmont’s notoriously tough greens aren’t the only thing members love to boast about. They’re also big on touting the locker room showers, with fixtures that spout water like Biblical rain clouds. Are they the best in golf? That’s a matter of opinion. But it makes for a good rivalry with Oakmont’s famous eastern Pennsylvania counterpart, Merion, whose membership might like to have a word.
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