Oakmont’s Dramatic Transformation: 15,000 Trees Removed Ahead of U.S. Open Return

From the back porch of Oakmont Country Club, the venue for this week’s U.S. Open, 16 of the 18 greens are visible—a sight unimaginable and even unwelcome during the club’s last Open in 1994.

At that time, Oakmont was famed as one of America’s most challenging golf courses, heavily forested with trees lining the fairways. The landscape was also dotted with hundreds of bunkers, meaning that a stray shot risked punishment by either a tree, a bunker, or sometimes both.

Located near Pittsburgh, the course’s transformation began quietly after the 1994 Open, unfolding over decades and culminating in 2023 with architect Gil Hanse’s restoration of Henry Fownes’s original design—the club’s founder and lead architect.

Remarkably, the massive tree removal project started covertly at night, carried out by club members wielding chainsaws under cover of darkness.

“It’s absolutely true,” recalled Bob Ford, the longtime head professional who once lived adjacent to the 18th green. “They would set out at 4:30 in the morning with lights. My wife would wake up to the sound of chainsaws, and I’d say, ‘Banks is at it again.’”

Banks refers to R. Banks Smith, a corporate attorney and then-president of Oakmont, who earned the nickname ‘Old Chainsaw’ for leading the discreet tree-cutting campaign that largely went unnoticed for years.