The course was once called the Oakmont East venue next door to the U.S. open location.
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By now, you probably know a lot about Oakmont.
But can you tell us about Oakmont East?
If you are like most golf fans, you’ve never heard of this lost green history. But facts are facts, and that’s an interesting fact.
This week’s U.S. Open Website once had a sibling class, 18-hole neighbors that one can play. Now it’s just a field, part of which extends to the right of the 3rd hole of Oakmont Beast 4 par-4, where today’s hotel tent blooms. But, close your eyes and we will draw the previous layout picture.
Its public course, founded in 1938, was designed by Emil Loeffler, a green staffer and golf professional in Oakmont, who worked as a golf course architect when he did not fold his shirt and changed his shirts to Oakmont members in a professional store. Loeffler has accumulated about 20 design credits in the Pittsburgh area over the years, including the first nine holes of Latrob Country Club (Arnold Palmer’s Future Family Class) and the back nine redesigns of Pittsburgh Outdoor Club.
On the advance of the 1962 U.S. Open, Oakmont needed a championship parking space and then purchased the course and operated it for nearly half a century after that.
Longtime Oakmont members recalled it, a beautiful track with small, challenging greens, which was a great tweak for Oakmont’s own club champion. The 1960s Oakmont East Recorcard lists its 70s (to 35 per 9), extending to 5,496 yards.
In the early 2000s, the course was closed to the public and used only in small quantities by Oakmont members and residents of local senior centers.
Longtime Oakmont member Chick Wagner said in Aughts that he provided the club with an investment under the following plan: He would rent Oakmont East for one dollar and use the help of grazing animals in the traditional common foundation course in Brora, Scotland, and maintain it in the traditional common foundation course in Scotland. Wagner said, but the club refused.
In the early 2010s, Oakmont East was completely closed.
But memory is still with the original club. Over the past two years, Oakmont has used it as an open gift shop in the United States.
