Oakmont Country Club: The world's best assess golf's toughest test at the U.S. Open

This week's U.S. Open is expected to provide the toughest test on this season's Race to Dubai and potentially the biggest golfing challenge some of the players have ever faced.

Oakmont Country Club has long been regarded as one of the most diffcult courses on the planet and when combined with the USGA's desire to make the United States' national open the toughest test in golf, the set up for these weeks can be brutal.

Since the course went to a par 70, it has hosted the U.S. Open in 2007 and 2016, with just four players finishing the event under par across both editions.

With five-inch rough and greens expecting to run at 15 on the Stimpmeter this week, breaking par could once again be a challenge and when some of the game's biggest stars faced the world's media, they opened up on just how difficult things could be.

Dustin Johnson (2016 champion at four under)

Probably this one (is the hardest course I've ever played). The course is just as hard as I remember, if not harder. Good memories here. Obviously it was a long time ago. I have confidence in this golf course because I know I played well but obviously this week puts a lot of pressure on the driver. I feel like I'm driving the ball really good right now. Even from there, though, it doesn't get much easier. You definitely have to hit it in the fairway if you want a chance to win around here.

Rory McIlroy

It's Oakmont. Even though Gil (Hanse) has come in here and done his thing, it's still a big brute of a golf course and you're going to have to have your wits about you this week all the way throughout the bag: off the tee, into the greens, around the greens. Everyone knows what to expect. It's Oakmont. It's going to be a great test. I'm glad we have spotters up there because I played last Monday... and you hit a ball off the fairway and you were looking for a good couple of minutes just to find it. It's very penal if you miss. Sometimes it's penal if you don't miss. But the person with the most patience and the best attitude this week is the one that's going to win. Last Monday felt impossible. I birdied the last two holes for 81. It felt pretty good. It didn't feel like I played that bad. It's much more benign right now than it was that Monday. They had the pins in dicey locations and greens were running at 15.5. It was nearly impossible. The pins aren't going to be on three or four per cent slopes all the time. If you put it in the fairway, it's certainly playable. But then you just have to think about leaving your ball below the hole and just trying to make as many pars as you can. You get yourself in the way of a few birdies, that's a bonus.

Scottie Scheffler

This is probably the hardest golf course that we'll play, maybe ever. When you're in the fairway, there's opportunity, but what's so special about this place is pretty much every time you're off the fairway it's going to be very difficult for you to get the ball to the green. There's an element of luck when you hit the ball in the rough but that's why I say this golf course is so well bunkered, especially for a golf course without trees, I think this is a place that can get away with it really well because there's so many bunkers everywhere and they're deep and it's a real penalty when you hit the ball in the bunkers here. I don't really know if this is a golf course you can necessarily just overpower with kind of a bomb and gouge type strategy, especially with the way the rough is. You have to play the angles. Some of the greens are elevated, other ones are pitched extremely away from you. Around this golf course, it's almost more of a decision whether or not you're going to use the seven wood or the three iron because most of the lies you either can get like a seven iron on it because it sits up or you're just going to hit a lob wedge 50 yards down the fairway. Really a lot of times you hit it in the rough, you can get fortunate sometimes with the lie, but for the most part I think you'll be wedging it out pretty much.

Bryson DeChambeau

I think everybody knows this is probably the toughest golf course in the world right now and you have to hit the fairways, you have to hit greens and you have to two-putt, worst-case scenario. When you've got those putts inside ten feet, you've got to make them. It's a great test of golf. I'm looking forward to it. I'm sure everybody else is. I think the person that wins this week is going to hit a lot of fairways and make a lot of putts. Can I be fearless on this golf course? Well, yeah, anybody really can. Are there times to be more reserved, depending on wind locations, softness of greens, pin locations, you name it, very strategic? It's not like every single hole is Winged Foot out here. You can't just bomb it on every single hole and blast over bunkers and have a wedge run up to the front of the green. You can on a lot of the holes but not on every one of them. I think this golf course you have to be just a fraction more strategic, especially with the rough is so long. I'm going to be as fearless as I can possibly be out there.

Justin Thomas

I feel like you kind of take the course for what it is and obviously Oakmont is Oakmont. You know what you're getting and it's pretty right in front of you. You just have to really try to be as sharp as you can but for me personally, I just feel like it's a great week to be in a great place mentally and very, very patient and kind of picking our spots out there. You go to a place like this, they don't need to set it up any differently or trick it up or do anything for it to challenge both the physical and mental part of our game. Oakmont is plenty challenging in both of those aspects. I just think it requires patience and discipline. If you just get lazy, like on any drive, any wedge shot, any chip, any putt, you can kind of look stupid pretty fast, especially at a place like this. I hope it psychs a lot of players out. It's a part of the preparation, like trying to go hit wedges or trying to get the speed of the greens or anything. It's getting a game-plan for how you're going to approach the course mentally and strategically. I understand this place is hard. I don't need to read articles or I don't need to hear horror stories. I've played it, I know it's difficult. I also have faith that if I go play well and I'm driving the ball well and I'm hitting my irons like I know I can, I'm going to have a lot of birdie opportunities. I just need to kind of pick my spots and take the hole and the course for what I have that day kind of thing.

Xander Schauffele

Anything close to par is what they want here. The members absolutely love their property, and the members absolutely want it to be over par. I know what they're rooting for. I don't think people turn the TV on to watch some of the guys just hit like a 200-yard shot on the green, you know what I mean? I think they turn on the U.S. Open to see a guy shooting eight over and suffer. That's part of the enjoyment of playing in the U.S. Open for viewers. It's a challenge. It's challenging myself to try and hit every fairway, to try and hit every green, to try and be disciplined like through and through. There's going to be a point where you lay up into a bad spot and it goes to laying up again from that lay up spot. If you have a decent lie, you might try to take some risk and that's part of the fun. I think it just puts an emphasis on hitting the fairway and hitting greens. If you're a premier ball striker, you'll be licking your chops. Yeah, that's pretty much it. You're legit in the fairway, in the first cut, or it's pretty hard to be in the bunker and have an open shot to the green. Typically you seem to be up in it, so you're just kind of taking your medicine. If you're in the rough, it's very lie dependent. For the most part, the only control you can have is if you keep it right in front of you.

Jon Rahm

I think you embrace it. You know how great it is. But to be honest, once you start the tournament, all of those things kind of go away. It's business at that point. It's time to post a score. You're not really thinking, 'oh, this is Oakmont'. It's more like, 'OK, here's the first hole, hopefully make a four, then move onto the next'. That's kind of how it goes. I think the first few holes you think about it in practice but then after that, [you say] 'what do I need to do to hit the best shot possible and then the next shot?'. If you just drive it well and everything else is poor, you have no chance. It all starts at the tee. They've added some length on some holes. Like at number three, you didn't necessarily have to hit driver, now you kind of do. You can always choose not to, but I wouldn't be going into those greens with six or five irons by choice. That's too small a target to have a chance. As often as possible, I would say driver is going to be the play. Again, it's so much more than just that, right? It's a test of all aspects of your game, and that's what makes it so special.

Collin Morikawa

First time here. I know a lot of guys took trips before, played in 2016, but saw my first look of Oakmont and what it has to offer yesterday and man, it's just tough. I think you keep hearing the word tough and rough, a lot of rhyming words, but overall you have to hit the ball really well. You know you're going to get penalised even on good shots, and that's just part of this golf course. We'll see how it plays out. Greens already today are getting a lot faster compared to yesterday. Depending on the weather, you kind of have to adapt to that as the week goes on. You don't really see a lot of golf courses with front-to-back slopes, so that changes a lot with how we're approaching these greens and depending where you are on the fairway or the rough. Then just how the slopes of these greens, the greens remind more of a links style green than anywhere else. I've got a nine wood. It's like cheating. I told that to myself yesterday and then I had some lies today that were not playable. When you have really long rough, hitting a nine iron is going to be more beneficial than trying to hit a six iron if the ball is really down just because you need loft to get out of the rough. I don't think people understand how thick the rough is. It's not wispy like the club is going to go through. Sometimes you see that at The Open. This is just thick. Clubs will turn over. You're going to see guys trying to hit pitching wedge out and it's going to go 45 degrees left because that's how thick the rough is. That's just how you have to play it. It's just being smart. When you're in the rough out here, there's still bunkers you have to carry. It's not like you just play it out to the front of the green. There's bunkers you might have to carry if you hit it off line. You're just honestly trying to make four from 150 yards.