Oakmont's massive greens will be even bigger when the US Open returns next summer for a 10th time

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Oakmont's already massive greens will be even more daunting when the men's U.S. Open returns next summer for a record 10th time.

The club situated in the northern Pittsburgh suburbs has restored more than 24,000 square feet of green surface over the last two years as part of a renovation guided by golf course architect Gil Hanse.

Hanse initially was brought in to focus on the bunkers. During his trips to the course, he came across photographs from the 1920s and 1930s and noticed the greens used to be much larger before several factors — time and natural erosion most of all — began chipping away at them.

He talked to the club, whose membership enthusiastically agreed the renovations were a chance to make the notoriously fast greens even harder than they were when Dustin Johnson won his first major at Oakmont in 2016.

While the changes this time around won't be quite as visible as they have in the past — Oakmont has spent most of the last 30 years removing thousands of trees in hopes of returning to its wind-swept, links-style roots — the 155 players who will join defending champion Bryson DeChambeau could find pins tucked in places they've never been before during previous Open stops at the venerable course that opened in 1904.

“The greens are the No. 1 defense on the course,” grounds superintendent Mike McCormick said Monday. “Oakmont, in today’s world, it’s not a crazy long golf course. There are several holes out here the players will be hitting wedges into and it puts even more of an emphasis on (the greens).”

The course will play at 7,372 yards as a par 70 in 2025, a tick up from the 7,219 yards it played at in 2016.

One of the new pin options the expanded greens give the USGA is on the 182-yard, par-3 13th hole. Pin placement previously was limited to the left side of the green, with little wiggle room in terms of yardage. Now there are a variety of options, including a back-right pin that sits in the middle of a bowl, rewarding a good shot but almost inaccessible from other portions of the green, particularly the front right.

U.S. Open scores have trended lower of late. Only one of the last eight winners has posted a higher four-round total in relation to par than Johnson's 4-under 276, with the last six champions all finishing at 6-under or better.

Scott Langley, the USGA's senior director of player relations, thinks Oakmont remains one of the stiffest tests because it lacks the kind of shot options places like Pinehurst No. 2 (2024) or Los Angeles Country Club (2023) provide.

“You have strategic width (in those places), you can play the angles more,” Langley said. “There are spots here where you do that. But by and large, Oakmont is you hit a good shot or you don’t. And if you don’t, the penalty is pretty uniform.”

The more notable changes besides the greens are a new-look fairway on the 485-yard, par-4 seventh hole that offers players two choices: play it safe and short to the right but settle for a blind approach or aim left and try to carry a drive 320+ yards over a fairway bunker that if executed correctly lets you see the pin on your approach with a short iron.

Oakmont also rebuilt every hazard and revamped the course’s nearly 200 bunkers while updating the drainage system. The club was hit by nearly 3 inches of rain during the early rounds of the U.S. Open’s last visit, forcing the grounds crew and volunteers to get creative while bailing out the sand traps.

“The bunkers had deteriorated significantly from 2016 to 2022,” McCormick said. “There’s a lot of newer technology and ways to drain bunkers and hold sand and limit contamination. So the club had an opportunity to make sure that the performance of the playing surfaces (remained consistent).”

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This is an overall photo of Oakmont Country Club, in Oakmont, Pa., on Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

This is the Church Pew trap between the third fairway, top, and fourth fairway, bottom, at Oakmont Country Club, in Oakmont, Pa., on Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

This is the tenth green at Oakmont Country Club, in Oakmont, Pa.,on Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

This is the Church Pew trap between the third fairway, right, and fourth fairway, left, at Oakmont Country Club, in Oakmont, Pa., on Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

This is the ninth green in front of the clubhouse at Oakmont Country Club, in Oakmont, Pa., on Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

This is the eleventh green at Oakmont Country Club, in Oakmont, Pa., on Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

This is the twelfth green at Oakmont Country Club, in Oakmont, Pa., on Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

The thirteenth green gets mowed at Oakmont Country Club, in Oakmont, Pa., on Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

This is the first green at Oakmont Country Club, in Oakmont, Pa., on Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

This is the ninth green in front of the clubhouse at Oakmont Country Club, in Oakmont, Pa., on Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

A group of immigrant truckers sued California's Department of Motor Vehicles on Tuesday, alleging the state violated thousands of workers' rights when officials took action to revoke their commercial driver's licenses.

California officials said last month that the state notified about 17,000 truckers that their commercial driver's licenses would be revoked because the expiration dates went past when the drivers were legally allowed to be in the U.S. That number has since grown to 21,000.

The move came after the Trump administration started cracking down on states' issuance of the licenses to immigrants. The federal government has threatened to withhold money from California, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and New York over the issue.

The Sikh Coalition, a national group defending the civil rights of Sikhs, and the San Francisco-based Asian Law Caucus filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the California drivers.

“These drivers have spent years anchoring their lives to these careers, only to now face potential economic ruin through no fault of their own — they deserve better, and California must do better,” said Munmeeth Kaur, the Sikh Coalition’s legal director, in a statement.

The state's plan to revoke the truckers' licenses violates their due process rights and threatens their livelihoods, the groups allege. They're asking the Alameda County Superior Court to pause the license cancellations.

The California DMV said it doesn't comment on pending litigation.

Concerns about immigrant truck drivers gained attention after a tractor-trailer driver who was not authorized to be in the U.S. made an illegal U-turn and caused an August crash in Florida that killed three people. A fiery California crash that also killed three people in October and involved a truck driver in the country illegally added to the worries.

FILE - A truck departs from a Port of Oakland shipping terminal on Nov. 10, 2021, in Oakland, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)