Recently, things have been fairly quiet for me when it comes to golf. I played a round in early January and besides one other round on Christmas day, that has been it since I got back from Florida! However, I have been wanting to use an iDealGolfer.com voucher that I purchased a while back for Oakmont Country Club.

Keep in mind this isn’t the “Pennsylvania” Oakmont Country Club, which is just fine by me. That said, I snagged my voucher here for just $35, which is lower than the guest-of-a-member rate, at least according to the receipt I was given! So far, I have nothing but positive things to say about iDealGolfer and the ClubCorp facilities that I’ve visited.

According to Golf Advisor, the course is a collaboration between Don January, Roger Packard and Dennis Wise, in the mid 1980’s. I’ve heard of January, but not Packard nor Wise. It seems that Wise worked for Tom Fazio before splitting off on his own. Interesting!

Oakmont is a course that seems like it would be a good members course. By that I mean there are plenty of par/birdie holes out there and lots of opportunity to recover. Plus, the surrounding homes are set back from play.

While trees can still influence shots (especially on the back nine) I thought the course had an air of calmness to it. It allowed me to tinker with my swing without much worry about losing a ball. The front nine is wide open and eases you into the round with large driving areas. The back nine is still player-friendly, however it forces you to pick lines and brings some water and trees into play.

Oakmont’s best stretch is the 10th through the 14th because you get a little bit of everything! The 10th is a visually-intimidating par-4 featuring two water hazards while the 11th and 13th holes are tree-lined, requiring a drive in the fairway.

The 12th is a neat uphill par-3 with a severely sloping back-to-front green. I’m sure plenty of matches have been lost there trying to putt that green! Finally, the 14th is a short risk/reward par-4 that could be driven by the bigger hitters (316 yards from the tips). However, water to the right must be avoided.

I played the blue tees which are 70.9/128/6396. I found the biggest challenge was putting the greens. Some greens were fairly flat while others made two putting difficult. I struggled to judge if a putt was uphill or downhill on the flatter-looking greens.

Course conditions were very good considering that it is winter and that it rained most of last week. It was cart path only and things were squishy. As you’d expect with all that rain the course played long. The tees had a lush overseed and the fairways had a light overseed. The fairways were full, but I had plenty of tight lies in them.

The greens were smooth and rolled at a medium pace, unless you were above the hole. Then, they were terrifyingly fast! I was in one bunker and the sand was quality.

There is nothing flashy about Oakmont, but I enjoyed my round and thought it had the right amount of everything (elevation change, bunkers, water, wacky greens, etc.). If I lived close and was looking for a course to call home I’d give Oakmont some serious thought!

Course Pictures (click any picture to scroll through the gallery):