US Open '25: Decades ago under dark of night, Oakmont began removing trees and started a golf trend

Last month, Scottie Scheffler made mention of a trend in golf design that rubs him wrong — removing trees from courses.

This week, the world's best player and favorite to win the U.S. Open will play a course that did just that, but didn't become one bit easier the way some layouts do when the trees go away. Under the dark of night three decades ago, the people in charge of Oakmont Country Club started cutting down trees. They didn’t stop until some 15,000 had been removed.

The project reimagined one of America’s foremost golf cathedrals and started a trend of tree cutting that continues to this day.

While playing a round on YouTube with influencer Grant Horvat, Scheffler argued that modern pro golf — at least at most stops on the PGA Tour — has devolved into a monotonous cycle of “bomb and gouge”: Hit drive as far as possible, then gouge the ball out of the rough from a shorter distance if the tee shot is off line.

“They take out all the trees and they make the greens bigger and they typically make the fairways a little bigger, as well,” Scheffler said. “And so, the only barrier to guys just trying to hit it as far as they want to or need to, it’s trees.”

Scheffler and the rest in the 156-man field that tees off Thursday should be so lucky.

While the latest Oakmont renovation, in 2023, did make greens bigger, fairways are never wide at the U.S. Open and they won’t be this week.

Tree-lined or not, Oakmont has a reputation as possibly the toughest of all the U.S. Open (or any American) courses, which helps explain why it is embarking on its record 10th time hosting it. In the two Opens held there since the tree-removal project was completed, the deep bunkers, serpentine drainage ditches and lightning-fast greens have produced winning scores of 5-over par (Angel Cabrera in 2007) and 4 under (Dustin Johnson in 2016).

In an ironic twist that eventually led to where we (and Oakmont) are today, the layout was completely lined with trees in 1973 when Johnny Miller shot 63 on Sunday to win the U.S. Open. That record stood for 50 years, and the USGA followed up with a course setup so tough in 1974 that it became known as “The Massacre at Winged Foot” -- won by Hale Irwin with a score of 7-over par.

“Everybody was telling me it was my fault,” Miller said in a look back at the ’74 Open with Golf Digest. “It was like a backhanded compliment. The USGA denied it, but years later, it started leaking out that it was in response to what I did at Oakmont. Oakmont was supposed to be the hardest course in America.”

It might still be.

In a precursor to what could come this week, Rory McIlroy and Adam Scott played practice rounds last Monday in which McIlroy said he made a 7 on the par-4 second and Scott said he hit every fairway on the front nine and still shot 3 over.

While Oakmont leaned into tree removal, there are others who aren’t as enthused.

Jack Nicklaus, who added trees to the 13th hole at Muirfield Village after seeing players fly a fairway bunker on the left for a clear look at the green, said he’s OK with tree removal “if they take them down for a reason.”

“Why take a beautiful, gorgeous tree down?” he said. “Like Oakmont, for example. What’s the name of it? Oak. Mont. What’s that mean? Oaks on a mountain, sort of. And then they take them all down. I don’t like it.”

A lot of Oakmont’s members weren’t fans, either, which is why this project began under dark of night. The golf course in the 1990s was barely recognizable when set against pictures taken shortly after it opened in 1903.

Architect Henry Fownes had set out to build a links-style course. Dampening the noise and view of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which bisects the layout, was one reason thousands of trees were planted in the 1960s and ’70s.

“We were finding that those little trees had all grown up and they were now hanging over some bunkers,” R. Banks-Smith, the chairman of Oakmont’s grounds committee when the project began, said in a 2007 interview. “And once you put a tree on either side of a bunker, you lose your bunker. So, you have to make a decision. Do you want bunkers or do you want trees?”

Oakmont went with bunkers – its renowned Church Pew Bunker between the third and fourth fairways might be the most famous in the world – and thus began a tree project that divides people as much today as it did when it started.

“I’m not always the biggest fan of mass tree removal,” Scott said. “I feel a lot of courses that aren’t links courses get framed nicely with trees, not like you’re opening it up to go play way over there.”

Too many trees, though, can pose risks.

Overgrown tree roots and too much shade provide competition for the tender grasses beneath. They hog up oxygen and sunlight and make the turf hard to maintain. They overhang fairways and bunkers and turn some shots envisioned by course architects into something completely different.

They also can be downright dangerous. In 2023 during the second round of the Masters, strong winds toppled three towering pine trees on the 17th hole, luckily missing fans who were there watching the action.

“There are lots of benefits that trees provide, but only in the right place,” said John Fech, the certified arborist at University of Nebraska who consults with the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America.

When Oakmont decided they didn’t want them at all, many great courses followed. Winged Foot, Medinah, Baltusrol and Merion are among those that have undergone removal programs.

Five years ago, Bryson DeChambeau overpowered Winged Foot, which had removed about 300 trees, simply by hitting the ball as far as he could, then taking his chances from the rough.

It’s the sort of golf Scheffler seems to be growing tired of: “When you host a championship tournament, if there’s no trees, you just hit it wherever you want, because if I miss a fairway by 10 yards, I’m in the thick rough (but) if I miss by 20, I’m in the crowd," Scheffler told Horvat.

How well that critique applies to Oakmont will be seen this week.

AP Golf Writer Doug Ferguson contributed.

AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

FILE - Johnny Miller, of Hilton Head Island S.C., who started his final Open round Sunday, June 17, 1973 six strokes behind the leaders and 3-over par 216, takes over fourth round lead with a charging 5-under par by birdie on the 15th, where he raises his hand after sinking the putt in Oakmont, Pa. (AP Photo, file)

FILE - Jack Nicklaus reacts on the first green during the playoff for the National Open Golf Tournament in Oakmont, Penn., June 17, 1962, against Arnold Palmer. (AP Photo/Preston Stroup, file)

FILE - This is the tenth green at Oakmont Country Club in Oakmont, Pa., Monday, Sept. 16, 2024, the course for the 2025 U.S. Open golf tournament. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

FILE - Arnold Palmer, left, swings his club as he and Julius Boros walk on to green at Oakmont Country Club at Oakmont, Penn., where they were in a four-way tie for the lead in the end of third round of the U.S. Open Golf Championship, June 16, 1973. Palmer, Boros, Jerry Hear and John Schlee all had 3 under 210. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - This is an overall photo of Oakmont Country Club in Oakmont, Pa., Monday, Sept. 16, 2024, the course for the 2025 U.S. Open golf tournament. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration's criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell appeared on Monday to be emboldening defenders of the U.S. central bank, who pushed back against President Donald Trump’s efforts to exert more control over the Fed.

The backlash reflected the overarching stakes in determining the balance of power within the federal government and the path of the U.S. economy at a time of uncertainty about inflation and a slowing job market. This has created a sense among some Republican lawmakers and leading economists that the Trump administration had overstepped the Fed's independence by sending subpoenas.

The criminal investigation — a first for a sitting Fed chair — sparked an unusually robust response from Powell and a full-throated defense from three former Fed chairs, a group of top economic officials and even Republican senators tasked with voting on Trump's eventual pick to replace Powell as Fed chair when his term expires in May.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump did not direct his Justice Department to investigate Powell, who has proven to be a foil for Trump by insisting on setting the Fed's benchmark interest rates based on the data instead of the president's wishes.

“One thing for sure, the president’s made it quite clear, is Jerome Powell is bad at his job,” Leavitt said. “As for whether or not Jerome Powell is a criminal, that’s an answer the Department of Justice is going to have to find out.”

The investigation demonstrates the lengths the Trump administration is willing to go to try to assert control over the Fed, an independent agency that the president believes should follow his claims that inflationary pressures have faded enough for drastic rate cuts to occur. Trump has repeatedly used investigations — which might or might not lead to an actual indictment — to attack his political rivals.

The risks go far beyond Washington infighting to whether people can find work or afford their groceries. If the Fed errs in setting rates, inflation could surge or job losses could mount. Trump maintains that an economic boom is occurring and rates should be cut to pump more money into the economy, while Powell has taken a more cautious approach in the wake of Trump's tariffs.

Several Republican senators have condemned the Department of Justice's subpoenas of the Fed, which Powell revealed Sunday and characterized as “pretexts” to pressure him to sharply cut interest rates. Powell also said the Justice Department has threatened criminal indictments over his June testimony to Congress about the cost and design elements of a $2.5 billion building renovation that includes the Fed's headquarters.

“After speaking with Chair Powell this morning, it’s clear the administration’s investigation is nothing more than an attempt at coercion,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, on Monday.

Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said on social media that the Fed “ignored” her office’s outreach to discuss the renovation cost overruns, “necessitating the use of legal process — which is not a threat.”

“The word ‘indictment’ has come out of Mr. Powell’s mouth, no one else’s,” Pirro posted on X, although the subpoenas and the White House’s own statement about determining Powell's criminality would suggest the risk of an indictment.

A bipartisan group of former Fed chairs and top economists on Monday called the Trump administration's investigation “an unprecedented attempt to use prosecutorial attacks" to undermine the Fed's independence, stressing that central banks controlled by political leaders tend to produce higher inflation and lower growth.

“I think this is ham-handed, counter-productive, and going to set back the president’s cause,” said Jason Furman, an economist at Harvard and former top adviser to President Barack Obama. The investigation could also unify the Fed’s interest-rate setting committee in support of Powell, and means “the next Fed chair will be under more pressure to prove their independence.”

The subpoenas apply to Powell's statements before a congressional committee about the renovation of Fed buildings, including its marble-clad headquarters in Washington, D.C. They come at an unusual moment when Trump was teasing the likelihood of announcing his nominee this month to succeed Powell as the Fed chair and could possibly be self-defeating for the nomination process.

While Powell's term as chair ends in four months, he has a separate term as a Fed governor until January 2028, meaning that he could remain on the board. If Powell stays on the board, Trump could be blocked from appointing an outside candidate of his choice to be the chair.

Powell quickly found a growing number of defenders among Republicans in the Senate, who will have the choice of whether to confirm Trump's planned pick for Fed chair.

Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican and member of the Senate Banking panel, said late Sunday that he would oppose any of the Trump administration’s Fed nominees until the investigation is "resolved."

“If there were any remaining doubt whether advisers within the Trump Administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Federal Reserve, there should now be none,” Tillis said.

Sen. Dave McCormick, R-Penn, said the Fed may have wasted public dollars with its renovation, but he said, “I do not think Chairman Powell is guilty of criminal activity.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune offered a brief but stern response Monday about the tariffs as he arrived at the U.S. Capitol, suggesting that the administration needed “serious” evidence of wrongdoing to take such a significant step.

“I haven’t seen the case or whatever the allegations or charges are, but I would say they better, they better be real and they better be serious,” said Thune, a Republican representing South Dakota.

If Powell stays on the board after his term as chair ends, the Trump administration would be deprived of the chance to fill another seat that would give the administration a majority on the seven-member board. That majority could then enact significant reforms at the Fed and even block the appointment of presidents at the Fed's 12 regional banks.

“They could do a lot of reorganizing and reforms” without having to pass new legislation, said Mark Spindel, chief investment officer at Potomac River Capital and author of a book on Fed independence. “That seat is very valuable.”

Powell has declined at several press conferences to answer questions about his plans to stay or leave the board.

Scott Alvarez, former general counsel at the Fed, says the investigation is intended to intimidate Powell from staying on the board. The probe is occurring now “to say to Chair Powell, ’We’ll use every mechanism that the administration has to make your life miserable unless you leave the Board in May,'" Alvarez said.

Asked on Monday by reporters if Powell planned to remain a Fed governor, Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council and a leading candidate to become Fed chair, said he was unaware of Powell’s plans.

“I’ve not talked to Jay about that,” Hassett said.

A bipartisan group of former Fed chairs and top economists said in their Monday letter that the administration’s legal actions and the possible loss of Fed independence could hurt the broader economy.

“This is how monetary policy is made in emerging markets with weak institutions, with highly negative consequences for inflation and the functioning of their economies more broadly,” the statement said.

The statement was signed by former Fed chairs Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen, and Alan Greenspan, as well as former Treasury Secretaries Henry Paulson and Robert Rubin.

Still, Trump's pressure campaign had been building for some time, with him relentlessly criticizing and belittling Powell.

He even appeared to preview the shocking news of the subpoenas at a Dec. 29 news conference by saying he would bring a lawsuit against Powell over the renovation costs.

“He’s just a very incompetent man,” Trump said. “But we’re going to probably bring a lawsuit against him.”

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AP writers Lisa Mascaro and Joey Cappelletti contributed to this report.

FILE - Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, right, and President Donald Trump look over a document of cost figures during a visit to the Federal Reserve, July 24, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)