What I learned playing 36 U.S. Open holes in 36 hours

Somewhere in the middle of the 21,000 steps I took one month ago at Erin Hills, a sudden urge hit me, like it does once a year, every year, to completely quit this game. 

Maybe you’re like me or we at least have a few things in common. A hyper-competitive middle handicap who doesn’t slow anyone down but is annoyed at how infrequently he breaks 80. As for when this urge strikes? It always builds from some concoction of cost, effort, inexplicable struggle and frustration, but it always gets me thinking about other recreational sports. 

Tennis is so fun, and a better workout. Surfing has upfront costs of equipment and lessons, but after that the waves are free. The sailboats that circle outside Diversey Harbor and my Chicago apartment look even more peaceful than nine holes at sunset. Same for the bikers ripping up and down the lakeshore path. 

It was trudging up Erin’s par-3 6th hole (my 15th of the day) when the urge hit hardest. I had just made another rigid, over-the-top move at the ball and was rewarded with another weak, rocked-by-the-wind iron shot slicing nowhere near the green. I had driven 2.5 hours that morning, up from Chicago, and had planted a tripod behind me on every shot. And why? Because the U.S. Women’s Open was coming to Erin Hills in a few weeks, and the easiest way to get golf fans to care about it ahead of time is to get creators creating for YouTube. 

The USGA hosts “Media Days” ahead of its tournaments where anyone from local sportscasters to Paige Spiranac can experience what awaits competitors, building a relatability bridge between pros and spectators. The Erin Hills media day was May 5th; the Oakmont media day was May 6th. Given the 1 p.m. shotgun starts at each — and a lost hour via the time zone that separates them — there wasn’t a commercial flight you could catch from Milwaukee or Chicago to Pittsburgh or Cleveland to take part in both. The only way to do the Erin Hills-Oakmont Media Day Double would be to work for the USGA, which enlisted a private jet, or to con one of your coworkers (in this case, my producer, Darren Riehl) into making a challenge video. We’d set a 170-stroke aggregate over/under — 85 per course, totally doable for a 7.4-index — but it would only be possible by driving through the night and early morning. Wisconsin-Illinois-Indiana-Ohio-Pennsylvania.

That no doubt contributed to my quitter’s inclination. I was 15 angsty, uncomfortable holes in, and three holes away from starting a 10-hour drive across Middle America, just to keep playing this silly game in an embarrassing way on one of the hardest golf courses on the planet. Something had to change.

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THE DAY AT ERIN BEGAN WITH A USGA PRESS CONFERENCE. CEO Mike Whan rattled through a list of numbers about the state of the game, increasing participation and the legacy of the U.S. Opens. As the main speaker of a governing body, that’s part of the job. But what struck me most came later, from John Bodenhamer, chief championships officer. 

Bodenhamer stepped in front of the podium, addressing the room like a college professor, and decreed that the USGA is focused on visiting the “cathedrals” of the sport. He emphasized that word a few times that morning. Cathedrals are iconic, tied to their specific location. They’re gawked at and cherished. So are the anchor sites the USGA has promised Opens to — promises that extend as far out as 2051 to the Oakmonts, Shinnecocks, Pinehursts of the world. As iconic, in this analogy, as Notre-Dame Cathedral, in Paris, St. Patrick’s, in New York, and Westminster Abbey, in London. It was a curious word choice to use at Erin Hills because Erin is not one of golf’s cathedrals. It may never be, if only because it was conceived and built this century. It’s still just a teenager. And for every by-the-book, legendary cathedral, there are many temples, churches and basilicas just as important to the structures of the cities they inhabit. There’s St. Peter’s, in Rome. Sagrada Familia, in Barcelona. Not a cathedral, technically. Still very much evolving. 

That’s how the USGA views Erin Hills, host of the 2017 U.S. Open — a touch too soon, if you press Bodenhamer to weigh in — and last week’s U.S. Women’s Open. It will evolve, he told me, on its own and with some guidance from the USGA, as it hosts elite amateur events over the next two decades. 

Erin Hills is, very simply, a fun ride. You are constantly surfing those mounds, up the 2nd, down the 3rd, up the 4th, down the 5th. You’ll hit a lot of drivers, but the fescue will force 3-wood and others into your hands. You’ll be made uncomfortable with totally blind tee shots on 2, 8, 10. Then you’ll wind through the dunes of the 12th and feel like the creeping glacier that carved out this land. You’ll try driving the 15th green because you know you probably won’t be visiting often. It’s not one of those everyday courses. On the 18th tee, your caddie will challenge the group, “Five bucks to anyone who makes a par.” You’ll scoff. But then you’ll realize it takes three very full, very good shots to reach the green, and you’ll be shook at the plaque in the ground where Justin Thomas played 3-wood from, onto the green, with a cut, from 297 yards, for eagle and the first U.S. Open 63 since … Johnny Miller at Oakmont.

This is all to say, Erin Hills is one helluva course. But it sits out in a Wisconsin field where wind is almost always on the menu, and there are no boundaries. There are no trees to get in the way. No hazards offering the reprieve of a drop. We caught it on typically breezy day, where my feeble iron shots proved an Erin Hills truism: there is always room for recovery, but also room for bad to become worse. 

A birdie on the par-5 7th made me feel better about myself, as did the par on 8. I tried playing hero ball on my final hole, gunning for the pin on the par-3 9th — the tempest of Erin Hills — and was slapped in the face one final time. I got around in 88 strokes that felt closer to 100, and I felt even more glum that my camera-lugging producer shot 79. I’d even found a way to dismiss and discredit that birdie I’d just made (downhill, downwind from the up tees) and instead fixate on the double bogey with which I’d finished as I prepped for the next 10 hours behind the wheel. We typed “Oakmont Country Club” into Google Maps and started counting down, 587 miles to go.

IN ORDER TO ACTUALLY QUIT THIS GAME, a lot would have to change, starting with my address. 

I live next to a driving range, the ultimate gateway drug to all this madness. Remember your first experience at a range? The entertainment of side-eyeing others, each on their own hunt for success? Boyfriends giving girlfriends flawed advice. Moms taking lessons. Dads who went for a longer-than-normal walk, four clubs wedged under the seat of a stroller. Good (and bad) swing secrets bouncing off hitting bays in every direction? Maybe a stranger’s stray advice connects with you.

When you’re battling poor form, the range can provide a massive, unmeasurable dopamine hit. The swings are real, the shot shapes are real, the good contact is real, but there are no trees, bunkers, hazards. There’s a comedown from that high, but you’ll worry about it later. Because in the temporary rage of thinking about quitting, golf’s undying truth reveals itself: there is no end-game in this pursuit. If you just continue, there will be joy on the other side. So when we pulled into the Holiday Inn Express & Suites at 1:40 a.m. in Holiday City, Ohio — population: 50 — still 279 miles from Oakmont, I broke the news to sleep-deprived producer Darren.

“I’m sorry, but I need a get-right range session.” 

We reverse engineered our itinerary to depart at 6 a.m., securing precisely three hours and 16 minutes of sleep. We needed a range open to the public and open in the morning. We couldn’t afford to veer off I-76 too far, knowing we still had at least four hours of driving, and we’d need a putting warmup before facing Oakmont’s famously difficult greens. Met with a shockingly short list of options, we chose the closest one to Pennsylvania, largely because of its curious name: Parto’s Big on Golf. Whoever Parto was, maybe we could tap into his passion for golf.

We had driven across a healthy portion of the Rust Belt, touching several of what are often called “flyover states”, but there are a lot of people driving over them, too. You cruise along the artery that is I-90 and are constantly boxed in by semi-trucks delivering something to somewhere. You begin to recognize the difference between cities, townships, villages and Unincorporated. We pulled off the main drag just outside of Youngstown, a place epitomizing the entire region’s industrial manufacturing decline.

There isn’t much to look at along State Road 616: mostly trees, fields, ranch houses and telephone poles. I forced us to stop for a photo of a tattered basketball hoop attached to a defunct light pole, with three holes rusted through its metal backboard. (I love hoops in the wild.) A pessimist looking at Parto’s could have seen a place in decline, too — and I wasn’t feeling particularly sunny-side up. But before our tires even touched its gravel parking lot, I knew this was the spot. 

Parto’s calls itself a “Golf Learning Center”, and it really lives up to those three words. Its namesake, Tom Parteleno, has been the owner, operator and head teaching pro for 19 years, ever since he moved back from Florida. He’s not alone, though. In electric green font on Parto’s extremely 2004-internet-energy website, Kim Boehlke is listed as another instructor. He won the 1981 Ohio Open and competed on mini tours before coming back to Youngstown. On Parto’s website, he’s dubbed the “best lefty in the area.”

Parto’s has everything you’d want in a range — real (if shaggy) turf, wooden blocks defining each bay, and plenty of signs, flags and mini greens for target practice. The other half of the property is Parteleno’s masterpiece: a 9-hole par-3 course, measuring 959 yards. Its signature hole, the 3rd, has an island green. Fifteen years ago, it cost $5.50 to play. Today, it’s $7. They’re stiff-arming inflation while the rest of the golf industry runs with it.

Coming from the brawny Erin Hills to the thick, muscular Oakmont, the adjective that came to mind at Parto’s was cute. But I hope that doesn’t sound dismissive; at its very core, it felt like the sort of place that represents the foundation of golf in the United States. It is not maintained by the newest John Deere mowers. Thanks to an inch of overnight rain, we found it basically underwater. A local high school girl monitored the pro shop when we arrived. We paid $13 for a large bucket of Top-Flites, Pinnacles and Dunlops, $2 for a couple water bottles and $6 for athletic tape to soothe my blistered heels. 

You don’t need a Parto’s everywhere, but you do need places like it. Many people will grow up on the driving range of country clubs like Oakmont, but most will not. Some may be so blessed that Mom or Dad plan annual golf trips, and Erin Hills might be the highlight of one of ’em, but that’s a quick $600. I grew up about 70 miles north of Erin Hills on the driving range at Lake Breeze Golf Club in Winneconne, Wis. — a place not so different from Parto’s. When you hooked your range balls too much, they’d end up on the highway service road. Slices found the edge of the 1st fairway. The big, wooden bin I’d scoop buckets of range balls from is still there, 20 years later, now painted black. The top decision-makers of the sport spend a lot of time talking about what can be created to Grow The Game but a lot of it is already in place. At Parto’s, empty egg cartons are piled up next to a rack of balls. Pick any dozen for just $5.

This place was on the financial brink in 2010, when few people knew it existed. Now, Parteleno gives lessons every evening, “pretty much from 3 p.m. until dark.” He says his greens are some of the best in the area, and it doesn’t matter if he’s right or wrong. I hit balls off a dingy mat to feel better about myself, but the experience made me feel better about the game. I couldn’t stop smiling.

OPTIMISM IS WHATEVER I FELT in the Oakmont parking lot. I had used 88 strokes around Erin Hills, giving me 82 to play with at … the toughest course in the world? That’s what they say about Oakmont. 

The challenge it presents is obvious, which is its brilliance. There are barely any trees. There are no hazards. There are a few ditches that snake through the middle of the course. Don’t hit it there. Oakmont will have the longest, thickest rough professionals ever see. It will also have the fastest greens, many of which were expanded in a recent renovation. Big greens are not difficult for pros. But big, sloping greens that run 20% faster than what they are used to? That’s a much different story. The grounds crew have spent the spring slowly raising their mower blades every few weeks. Cut the rough to 2.5 inches, let it grow to 3.5, cut it down to 3. Let it grow to 4 inches, cut it down to 3.5. That’s how you make it stand tall and stiff, getting balls to slide down between the blades. Next week, it’ll be somewhere in the 4.5- to 5-inch range, an achievement only made possible by literally dismantling parts of the mowers and reconfiguring a new maximum mowing height. 

Only a special kind of golfing sicko wants to play this course frequently. But everyone can at least appreciate the treat a singular, unique challenge that shifts your golfer’s brain. You begin to feel pretty good about bogeys. You brush off the doubles because, That’s Oakmont, right? It’s never a soft, charitable, nice par from your caddie. It’s Hey, great par! from the entire group. 

I seemed to work the weak-fades out of my game in that visit to Parto’s, which led to a handful of greens in regulation on my first nine holes, and a couple pars on 7 and 8. But my day started on the 2nd with that grabby rough holding my ball just above the lip of a greenside bunker, forcing me to play away from the hole. I nearly sniped USGA CEO Mike Whan with a pulled tee shot on 4. I visited one of those ditches left of the 9th fairway. Double bogeys sneak up on you fast. An Open-viewing feature to look out for next week is the flattening of the scoring bell curve. Wet, soft Tour courses limit the variation to mostly 3s, 4s, 5s and 6s. Oakmont will deliver plenty of 7s and 8s. The golf will be a rollercoaster four-episode TV show. The plot can change quickly. 

The Golf Gods seemed to take issue with my pars on 11 and 12, opening the heavens for a few holes of downpour. One bogey and two doubles ensured that this 600-mile, 170-stroke challenge would not end in victory. When the rain finally ceased, I made a two-putt par on 16, the same thing Hogan did in 1953, and then went for the green on the drivable 17th. I sent my best drive of the week up over our caddies’ heads and they both shot their hands in the air like they were celebrating a touchdown. From just over the back of the green, I pitched back to eight feet and rolled in the putt for a birdie 3. Were it not for the 88 at Erin Hills, my “challenge” could have been within reach. The 88 I was about to sign for at Oakmont felt a lot more like 82.

(You can watch a video of this trip here.)

I was standing on the 18th tee when I was reminded of Bodenhamer’s “cathedrals” idea. You can see all of Oakmont from there, a course that has been hosting and testing the best, and offering us a show for decades. You have a brutish par-4 ahead of you, somehow feels more imposing than the ones that came before it. Probably because a gorgeous, classic clubhouse sits behind the green. Cathedral makes sense.

It will make even more sense next week, largely because it is one of the only times its gates will open. Like any of the iconic cathedrals around the globe, it’s meant to be visited, and you’re meant to walk through its massive doors with your phone tucked away and your eyes up, taking in every element of its architecture. In our case, it’s the cut of the rough, the sheen of the green, the bridge that spans the highway bisecting the property, the questions being asked of the golfer. When you walk through cathedrals, you have no choice but to wonder what mass is like on a Sunday morning. Or how extravagant it must look when it hosts a wedding. This cathedral’s daily tours only happen for one week every several years, though; after next week, most of us won’t see Oakmont for the next three years, waiting for the women to play there in 2028, before the men to return in 2034. 

So there was something precious about this moment, something central to why we play this silly game. We travel for it, we spend a lot of money on it, we toil through the days where it feels dumb, but it offers things that tennis, sailing and cycling can’t. There’s magic in a once-in-a-golf-career chance to test yourself at Oakmont. I wailed away at one final driver, cutting it into one of the fairway bunkers up the right side. The fried-egg lie that I found felt unfair and unnecessary. After driving this far…? My final frustration was accompanied by a history lesson; a club member, who had been paying dues for more than 30 years, had joined us on the tee and began reciting stories of club lore. I wedged out of the lie, then hit another wedge into the fairway before knocking a 9-iron onto the green.

The member was deep in his affection for the place by the time we reached the green, how it has stood the test of time, why it is even harder than Pine Valley, another of golf’s cathedrals. He quieted only as I stood in over a 40-footer on the 18th hole of a course I’ll probably never play again. My tiny audience watched as the ball curled up the hill before grazing the edge … and lipping in. For bogey. The perfect reason to hate this game and love it at the same time. And to think about it the entire drive home.