Anxious Rory McIlroy loses battle with his swing

Strange place, this Oakmont Country Club. Perhaps the only place in our golf world where it is the goal of membership to inflict pain.

“We like to punish our guests,” a longtime member, Gene Farrell, said on the eve of the 116th US Open. Crazy thing is, there probably isn’t a member at this iconic club who doesn’t subscribe to that thinking. Again, strange, wouldn’t you say?

Contrary to all these initiatives supported by the US Golf Association and the R&A — you know, the “grow the game” mantra — Oakmont members consider it their responsibility to the sport to slow the game. They do that by making sure their guests’ days are filled with double-bogeys or triples, that a miserable score is the end result, and that you can’t possibly finish this 18-hole root canal in less than five hours. Suffice to say, if everyone who wants to love golf had to play a round at Oakmont, equipment manufacturers would sell a few dozen sets of clubs a year.