"A shot poorly played should be a shot irrevocably lost."

There never has been a more precise summation of the design philosophy behind a particular golf course than the one attributed to Oakmont founder H.C. Fownes and his son, W.C. From the course's inception in 1904 under the guidance of H.C. to the end of the Fownes' (pronounced "phones") reign in 1946, Oakmont fully earned a reputation as the toughest course in the land. In fact, it's the course that gave birth to the term "penal architecture."

The bunkers were most penal of all. W.C. roamed the grounds observing play. When he saw a player get away with a bad shot, he would write it down. Soon, a new bunker would appear in that spot. By the 1930s, Oakmont was dotted with some 350 bunkers.

The Fowneses were admirers of Scottish courses, particularly the pot bunkers. They wanted their hazards to be just as difficult to escape from, but the clay-based soil of the Pittsburgh area didn't allow them to build the bunkers very deep and still drain properly. So they devised an ingenious, and diabolical, solution. The Oakmont bunkers were raked with a special, heavy implement that left deep furrows in the sand. If your ball ended up in one of them, the only option was to blast it out a short distance.

As M. Ellsworth Giles wrote in the program for the 1927 U.S. Open, ñThe committee in charge of the Oakmont course has little sympathy for bunkers which permit a player to make a long midiron or spoon shot to the green, to the accompaniment of vociferous applause from the gallery.î

Oakmont's committee had little sympathy for much else, including golfers. They skinned their greens much closer than any other course of the day, making the putting surfaces extremely treacherous. ItÍs said that W.C. would stand at the back of the 2nd green and drop a ball onto the surface; if it didn't roll all the way down the back-to-front slope and off the front, he would call for the greens to be cut.

The course overwhelmed competitors at the 1927 and 1935 U.S. Opens. The winning scores„Tommy ArmourÍs 301 in '27 and Sam Parks' 299 in '35, were the highest in their respective decades. When the Open returned in 1953, Armour described his victory. "Every hole was bordering on becoming a nightmare, not a single one that could even be called slightly easy," he wrote. "After you hit a perfect drive and after you hit a second shot onto the green, you had accomplished a little, but not nearly all.

After manipulating, not putting, the ball into the hole, you then had completed the one hole. But, this nightmare continued for 18 holes, and it was a feeling of relief when the round was finished."

He went on to write, "People reading this must think I didn't like Oakmont. They are right, I didn't!"

It's hard to imagine what those who didnÍt win the championship must have thought. In his report on the 1927 Open in Golf Illustrated, Kerr N. Petrie marveled that an overnight rain on the eve of the tournament didn't seem to slow the greens, while it did make bunker play more difficult as water settled between the furrows.

"Some of the players complained that the greens were skinned too fine and declared that a player had no sooner passed than the putting surfaces were again being manicured and massaged," he wrote. "These glassy greens, the furrows in the bunkers and the artful placing of the cups formed a never ceasing source of annoyance, criticism and contention."

Indeed, it's been said that the greens were cut at 3/32 or even 1/16 inches for the U.S. Opens at Oakmont, shorter and faster than they are for the championship today.

By the 1930s, the steel-shaft era had caused overall scoring to come down considerably. Adjusting for that factor, the winning score of 299 reflected that if anything, Oakmont played even tougher in the 1935 Open than it had nine years earlier.

The win by local boy Parks was probably the biggest upset in U.S. Open history, save Francis Ouimet's playoff win over Harry Vardon and Ted Ray in 1913. Parks didn't have to overcome legends, but he did have to beat, or at least survive, a brutal course.

By that time W.C., who won the 1910 U.S. Amateur and had served as USGA president in 1926-'27, had brought the course to a full boil in terms of difficulty. In addition to sprinkling the layout with bunkers, he had added a number of ditches to improve drainage, and, not incidentally, to serve as hazards. His staff employed a roller to ensure the greens remained exceptionally firm and fast. They rolled the fairways as well, so even when drives didnÍt find those deadly bunkers, players faced very tight lies.

Local knowledge was a huge help in safely negotiating this torture track, and Parks had plenty of that. An assistant pro at nearby South Hills Country Club who had played the winter tour for three years with modest success, Parks prepared in the months before the Open by heading to Oakmont each morning before reporting for work at his own course. He played nine holes each day, and would drop balls and hit shots from around the green at all angles.

"Few players back then were used to playing these types of greens," he would say much later. "I knew how to deal with the greens better than most did. I would analyze which was the better side to miss on. This way of thinking was critical at Oakmont." By avoiding the bunkers and three-putting only twice, Parks got around in "only" 11 over (Oakmont then played to a par of 72) to earn his only tour title.

By the 1953 Open, the Fowneses were no longer in charge; the new leadership had eliminated many bunkers (but not the furrows) and had slowed the greens a bit. The USGA initially demanded that the sand not be furrowed, but reached a compromise with the club„the fairway bunkers would have no furrows and the greenside bunkers only moderate ones. (The furrows were completely eliminated both for tournaments and regular play in 1964 when the previously coarse bunker sand was replaced with finer white sand.)

In the late 1940s, 1927 champion Armour saw his old friend Emil 'Dutch' Loeffler, Oakmont's long-time pro and greenkeeper, who bemoaned the gentler layout: "Tommy, they have killed the Monster! They have drawn its teeth!"

After playing the course, Armour had a different view: "A magnificent course was unfolded. What a change! What a thrill! The frightening aspect had disappeared and it was there in its true greatness."

Open results since have confirmed Armour's opinion. Scores indeed have come down gradually, but if the mark of a great course is the quality of the champions, Oakmont has few peers. Ben Hogan won the middle leg of his Triple Crown in 1953 with a five-under 283 total. In 1962 rookie Jack Nicklaus announced his arrival by beating Arnold Palmer in a playoff; both shot 283, one under the revised par, in regulation.

Eleven years later, Johnny Miller stunned the golf world with a U.S. Open record 63 in the final round for a total of 279. His 1973 win ignited a three-year stretch during which he was the tour's hottest player, winning 15 times. In 1994 Ernie Els won the first of his three majors in a playoff over Colin Montgomerie and Loren Roberts after the trio had matched Miller's 72-hole score.

There are no Sam Parks in that roster of winners, and the bellweather of Oakmont's transition from over-the-top terror to exacting test was MillerÍs 63. While soft conditions certainly played a role, it was a stark indication that Oakmont, while still very difficult, no longer left the best players in the world quaking with fear.

After Miller completed his record round, Oakmont's head professional at the time, Lew Worsham, himself a U.S. Open winner, was heard to murmur, "Lie still, Mr. Fownes. Lie still."

Adapted from Golf Courses of the U.S. Open by David Barrett/2007/Abrams, an imprint of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.