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The transformation of Oakmont Country Club began in the cloak of darkness. During the mid-1990s, a dozen groundskeepers would set out at 4 a.m. most days and take aim at a tree. Guided only by the headlights of a cart, they would cut the tree down, grind the stump, conceal the area with sod and remove all evidence of what they had just done.
This was how touchy the issue of tree removal was: It began in near-secrecy and continued even as members of the venerable Pittsburgh-area club threatened lawsuits to stop it. But when the U.S. Open returns to Oakmont for a record ninth time this week, it will represent a closing bookend in the case of chainsaw v. trees.
The wooded areas that lined the storied course for decades are virtually all gone, casualties of an effort to restore the course to its original, links-style design. And the only squirrel left is the one that adorns the club’s logo. Roughly 7,500 trees have been cleared since the U.S. Open was last held there in 2007, bringing the total victim count to nearly 15,000, by some estimates.
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And it’s not just the vistas around Oakmont that have changed as a result. The club itself has gone from something of a heretic in the industry to a trendsetter, leading what turned into a wave of tree-chopping initiatives at courses around the country.
“There has been a sea change,” said veteran golf course architect Jeff Brauer. “Years ago, and even now, you go to some clubs and every tree, it almost requires an act of Congress to remove it. But Oakmont certainly opened up the avenues for the wider discussion.”
In the larger world, trees are nice, leafy things that grow from the ground, usually not worth an extensive discussion unless one is about to fall on your house. In the country club world, trees are treated with only slightly less reverence than wealthy humans.
Smylie Kaufman plays a shot during a practice round on Monday.
Smylie Kaufman plays a shot during a practice round on Monday.PHOTO: ANDREW REDINGTON/GETTY IMAGES
Around the middle of the 20th century, they became viewed as the ultimate symbol of golf course beautification. Clubs that were built on more of an open terrain—as Oakmont was in 1903—started planting trees. Clubs that already had trees added more of them. Many were planted as memorials to one person or another.
But a funny thing happens to trees over time: They grow. And grow, and grow, eventually to the point where they can deprive the grass of the sunlight it needs to remain in suitable playing condition.
This is the point Oakmont had reached in the early 1990s. Mark Kuhns, Oakmont’s superintendent at the time and now the director of grounds at New Jersey’s Baltusrol, said trees were overcrowding the course to the point where the turf quality was deteriorating.
“The question was, do you want an arboretum, like a walk in the park? Or do you want to play golf?” Kuhns said. “If you want to play golf, I need 8-10 hours a day of direct sunlight on tees, greens and fairways.”
As has often been the case at other clubs, nobody wanted to hear this. The tree removal at Oakmont eventually became impossible to hide, which led to the most contentious period in its genteel history. Bob Ford, Oakmont’s longtime head pro, said there were even threats of fistfights between members on different sides of the issue, though as with the lawsuits, they never happened. A nearby church was rumored to have offered prayers for the trees’ survival.
But the chainsaw crowd prevailed, and for them, the 2007 Open was something of a vindication. Not only did Oakmont’s new look receive rave reviews, but the course itself proved to be as tough as it was before. The winning score, by Angel Cabrera of Argentina, was 5 over par.
Angel Cabrera of Argentina waves to the gallery after completing his final round of the 107th U.S. Open Championship at Oakmont Country Club on June 17, 2007.
Angel Cabrera of Argentina waves to the gallery after completing his final round of the 107th U.S. Open Championship at Oakmont Country Club on June 17, 2007.PHOTO: DONALD MIRALLE/GETTY IMAGES
Oakmont’s signature greens are as fast and vexing as ever. And what the course lacks in hardwood obstacles, it makes up for with stronger winds as a result, along with more than 200 bunkers. The absence of trees also reduces players’ depth perception as they eye a shot over Oakmont’s rolling hills.
“In some ways, the course is tougher,” said USGA executive director Mike Davis. “I suppose if you’re missing the fairway all the time, now you’re not dealing with trees. But in terms of testing the world’s best players, it has become a stronger test. It really has, since the trees came down.”
The U.S. Open has traditionally been held on tree-lined courses, but the tournament’s return to Oakmont comes during a three-year stretch that is expanding the notion of what an Open course looks like. Last year, it was held at Washington’s Chambers Bay, which has not a single tree in play. Next year, it will be held at Wisconsin’s Erin Hills, which the USGA selected shortly after it began a tree removal program in 2010.
Zach Reineking, the superintendent at Erin Hills, said more than 400 trees have been cleared, leaving just five on the course. “The USGA did not demand or require it. But are they in favor of it? Yes,” he said.
There are still some overwrought discussions about trees. More than a year after an ice storm felled Augusta National’s famed Eisenhower Tree, club chairman Billy Payne spoke emotionally about it at the 2015 Masters. After describing the challenge of creating “an appropriate lasting memory of this tree,” he announced that two grafts and a seedling had been preserved from it. “Priceless specimens,” he called them.
And not all clubs view Oakmont as a model to follow. Keith Foster, a longtime course architect who has led tree removal programs, said clubs often tell him they don’t want to go to Oakmont’s extreme. “What people perceive of Oakmont is a total nuke of all trees,” he said.
But many famous clubs, such as Baltusrol and New York’s Winged Foot, have already removed trees on a much smaller scale. And Brauer, the architect, said Oakmont continues to come up in talks with clubs that are considering doing the same, making a once-radical idea seem rational.
“My gut is, this will take hold as a movement in golf, sort of like minimalism,” he said. “I think it will finally take off after Oakmont.”
Write to Brian Costa at brian.costa@wsj.com