Justin Thomas Has a Great Idea to Show Golf Fans Just How Brutal Oakmont Will Play

If you say you wouldn’t tune in to watch this round of golf, you’re lying.
Justin Thomas watches his ball at the 2025 PGA Championship.
Justin Thomas watches his ball at the 2025 PGA Championship. / Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images

When Oakmont Country Club hosts the U.S. Open, you can bet that the world’s best players are going to face one of the most challenging tests their sport has to offer.

The 2007 U.S. Open at Oakmont produced a winning score of +5, with Angel Cabrera besting both Tiger Woods and Jim Furyk by a single stroke.

Golfers, golf media and golf fans are all looking forward to some carnage this weekend, but Justin Thomas has an idea to take the madness a step further.

Because of the difficulty Oakmont presents, many often wonder how an average weekend duffer would fare making the same walk the pros will make this weekend. Thomas’s pitch? Let’s find out.

“So much talk about “what would X handicap shoot at Oakmont,” Thomas wrote in a social media post. “Why don’t we find a way to make it happen? Have a 5, 10, 18 whatever handicap play Monday after the @USOpen. Back tees full rules of golf, and see what happens? May have to let a few groups thru and allow for 6-7 hours but I think we’re all here for it, no??”

This would be, I can assure you, must-watch television. Grown men having simultaneously the best (oh my god I’m playing Oakmont!) and worst (oh no, I’m playing Oakmont...} days of their lives.

While we might not get to see what your average golfer is going to score at Oakmont any time soon, this weekend’s action should provide plenty of evidence that the answer to that question is a high, high number.


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Tyler Lauletta
TYLER LAULETTA

Tyler Lauletta is a staff writer for the Breaking and Trending News Team/team at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI, he covered sports for nearly a decade at Business Insider, and helped design and launch the OffBall newsletter. He is a graduate of Temple University in Philadelphia, and remains an Eagles and Phillies sicko. When not watching or blogging about sports, Tyler can be found scratching his dog behind the ears.