US Open
Championship 2026

The US Open is run by the United States Golf Association (USGA), the governing body for golf in the United States. Its mandate is to find the best golfer in the world by making the test as difficult as possible — and the USGA takes that mandate seriously.

For the US Open, course setups are deliberately punishing:

• Fairways are narrowed — miss the fairway and you're in deep rough
• Rough is grown thick and long — recovery from the rough is difficult even for pros
• Greens are firmed up and run at extreme speed — putting at Oakmont in US Open conditions is terrifying
• Pin positions are placed in the most difficult locations

The result is that US Open scores are typically higher than other majors. Winning scores of even par (+0) or slightly under par are common. At its most extreme — Oakmont in 1994, for example — the winning score was even par. The course wins as often as the players.

Oakmont Country Club

Oakmont has hosted more USGA championships than any other course in the United States. It's arguably the most demanding course in American golf: 9 bunkers on the 8th hole alone, the famous "Church Pews" bunker, and greens that have been measured as among the fastest on earth during US Open week. Oakmont previously hosted the 2016 US Open, where Dustin Johnson won his first major after an infamous ruling on whether he accidentally grounded his putter before a putt.