A Former Tour Pro Who Called Oak Hill Home Reveals How to Play the Course and Who Wins This PGA
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — There aren’t many professional golfers who know more about Oak Hill than Terry Diehl, who played the PGA Tour in the 1970s and ‘80s.
Diehl grew up in Rochester and did so well in amateur golf, including wins in the International Junior Masters and the New York State Amateur, that his dad bought him a membership at Oak Hill in 1969. When he turned pro and made it to the tour, he promptly won the 1974 San Antonio Open and Oak Hill gave him an honorary membership in 1975 that he used for 25 years.
"Diehler," as Diehl is known to his buddies, is 74. He played a little senior golf but was mainly busy enjoying a successful second career in the investment business.
He played in two Masters, six U.S. Opens (he finished sixth in 1977) and two PGA Championships (he finished 10th in the 1980 PGA at Oak Hill). San Antonio was Diehl’s only Tour victory but he lost a five-hole playoff to Tom Kite in the IVB-Bicentennial Classic.
Diehl, who was inducted into the New York Golf Association’s Hall of Fame, was a fun and flashy Tour player who was popular with fans and media. He has a relationship and history with Oak Hill that others don’t. Here are some Tales of Oak Hill that Diehl thinks you might want to know, along with advice for this week's field and his pick to win …
Oak Hill honored Diehl years ago by planting a tree in his honor with a plaque. Then came the latest renovation and …
“The last time I was there, they had chopped my tree down,” Diehl says. “So, I’m playing with two old friends who were past club presidents at Oak Hill and I said, 'hey, you chopped my tree down.' And they said, ‘Yeah, we did.’ I go, 'well, what’d you do with the plaque?' They said, ‘uh, we threw it in a creek.’ I said, 'no, really. What did you do with it?' They said, ‘we’ll get back to you.’ I did some research on the club’s tree removal program and found out they chopped down Jack Nicklaus’s and Lee Trevino’s trees, too. So I guess I’m in good company.”
The fourth hole was Diehl’s nightmare. It happened from a bizarre incident during the 1980 PGA’s final round at Oak Hill. Nicklaus won handily but it was closer than it looked early in the final round.
“I was in contention Sunday and paired with Curtis Strange and Gil Morgan,” Diehl says. “I birdied the third hole to get within a couple behind Jack. I didn’t quite catch my tee shot at No. 4 and was in the second bunker on the right.
“The bunkers were deep but not as deep as they are now. I hit a 6-iron shot out and it hit the top of the bunker, corkscrewed down the rough line and hit a spectator in the foot. The ball caromed off this guy’s foot 30 yards dead right to the out-of-bounds line along Kilbourn Road. I got a rules official and discussed my options but there weren’t any. So I took a drop and the ball plugged, of course—we dropped from over the shoulder back then. I re-hit and I wound up making a 7. I was basically in shock the rest of the round.
“Curtis said years later that was still the worst break he’d ever seen. A friend of mine was one of the marshals on that hole. He walked over to my ball and asked the head marshal, ‘is Diehl’s ball out of bounds?’ The head marshal said, 'yeah, but only by a couple of inches.' My friend goes, ‘it’s Diehler’s ball. (Pause.) Is it still out of bounds?’ (Pause) He said, 'Yeah.'
“Well, in the early ‘90s I bought a little house four doors down from Oak Hill’s fourth green. I had a couple of dogs then. I trained them to go to the bathroom in that same bunker. Eventually, the superintendent grabbed me and said, ‘Diehler, I know your story about the dogs. Our guys are really tired of cleaning the dog stuff out of that bunker. Cut it out.’ So I did.”
Revenge is a dish best-served cold… even in a dog dish.
Oak Hill had a massive tree removal program as part of its renovation-slash-restoration. Most reactions have been extremely positive. Diehl has mixed feelings about the trees.
“I’m one of those guys,” he says. “I see all those trees gone and I don’t like it. I have a lot of good memories there."
Diehl recalls that when Dan Jenkins was at Sports Illustrated, he raved about two Oak Hill holes, No. 5 and No. 18. "Those were great holes. And of course, those were two of the first holes they changed.”
Diehl was an Oak Hill member when George and Tom Fazio gave the course a controversial makeover, changing several classic Donald Ross holes and replacing them with modern, out-of-place modern holes. He saw it all unfold, including at least one little-mentioned incident.
“I talked with George and Tom Fazio all the time when they were doing the original changes,” Diehl says. “George was hilarious. He sank a bulldozer into the pond right of the 6th hole. I don’t know how they got this thing out, or if they did, but it went all the way under the muck. Every time he saw me after that he used to say, ‘Diehler, we lost a tractor in your pond.’ I always said, 'Yes, George, I’m sorry about that.'”
Oak Hill’s finishing hole, always considered a beast, is still demanding after the latest renovation. But it’s different than the original.
“The old 18th green sat closer to the clubhouse,” Diehl says. “I get the idea that for congestion that you’ve got to bring it down to get more people around the hole. On the tee shot, though, there was a huge oak tree right on the corner of the bunker so I used to have to favor the left-hand side of the fairway or else I had to play some kind of low fade under and around that tree, which really defined the hole. You had to account for that tree and play away from it.
“Now, if you’re one of the longer hitters, you just stand on the tee and whale away and try to knock it over that bunker. You can take a lot of trouble out of play now. It’s one thing to hit a drive over a bunker, it was another thing to hit it over a 100-foot oak tree.”
You won’t recognize the new 15th hole. The Fazio redesigned-version featured a carry over a pond to a green that was, frankly, too narrow. After the renovation, it is now a downhill par-3, about 150 yards, to a long, tiered green with deep bunkers in front. Diehl laments that neither version is like the original.
“I loved the old 15th hole,” he says. “It was a little, 150-yard par-3 up against the boundary of the adjacent Irondequoit Country Club. There was out of bounds just left of the green. If you tugged your shot just a little bit and it hit off the left fringe, the ball would go out of bounds. There were bunkers all around.
“One of the characteristics of a Donald Ross course is that the shorter the hole, the more severe he made the green. He didn’t bury an elephant under the 15th green like some architects have done, but maybe he buried about 15 chipmunks, which gave the 15th green all these little swales and mounds and undulations. There was a huge drop-off on the right, too. It was only an 8- or 9-iron shot back then but you know, you could make a 2 there or you could make a 5.”
The secret of Oak Hill? It’s not a secret. Keep the ball below the hole on these undulating, fast greens at all times. Tour players are good but they’re not so good that they can control their approach shots out of the rough. So there’s a premium on hitting fairways in order to have the necessary control to hit the green in the right spot, assuming the player did the right guesswork when factoring in the elevation changes that characterize Oak Hill.
“This is not rocket science, you’ve got to keep the ball under the hole no matter what,” Diehl says. “Go back and look at the film clips of the 1968 U.S. Open at Oak Hill. Nicklaus outplayed Lee Trevino but Jack kept hitting the ball pin-high. You hit the ball pin-high and you get these tough rainbow-type putts because Ross and (Alister) Mackenzie and (A.W.) Tillinghast usually sloped greens from back to front so they’d drain and be receptive to approach shots. You see players look at the yardage and then ask the caddie how far it is to the front edge of the green. They want to carry the front edge, not get it to the hole. One of the scariest things in a major championship is having the ball above the hole when the greens are rolling 12 or 13 or more. How do you stop it?”
What type of player suits Oak Hill? That’s a trick question since all major championships place demands on all parts of a player’s game. But Oak Hill has a history of rewarding true ball-strikers, not just big-hitters or great putters.
“I think the winner will be one of the stronger players physically, as well as somebody who can take a punch on the chin, get back up and keep going," Diehl says. "The top 100 players all hit it 300 yards now. So there’s not going to be anyone like Tiger Woods when he won his first Masters and led the driving distance stats by 45 yards. You do need to be able to handle the elements. The weather in Rochester in mid-May can be sketchy. You could get snow, you could get 50-degree weather, 40-mile-an-hour winds, god only knows.”
And the winner is…
“Brooks Koepka," Diehl says. "He’s strong, he’s healthy now, his game is coming around. If you strip everything away from Oak Hill—the trees, the setup, whatever, it is a very fair course and it’s going to reward the guy who hits the most fairways and greens. I think that’s going to be Brooks. He’s got his swagger back.”