If frustration had a residence this week, it’d be Oakmont. While players are clearly frustrated with the brutal, rough, and lightning-fast greens, even fans are starting to complain now. It’s turning into one big mess, and no one’s pretending otherwise.

“That is cooked beyond belief… That’s burnt to a crisp,” said Bryson DeChambeau, the defending champion, while he visited the course days before the tournament for a practice round. He was hitting his shot into the rough on the par-3 6th hole and lost sight of the ball. He even described the 11th hole as a disaster. During the official practice round, DeChambeau was no less frustrated. According to community member Pete Pappas, he was seen snapping at volunteers and complaining about the slow pace of play, even asking a volunteer on the 4th hole to “call the USGA and have someone out here telling us when it’s okay to go.” And DeChambeau is not alone here.

Ben Griffin chimed in, too, saying, “You’re gonna have to hit fairways this week.” And he’s not kidding. At Oakmont, the fairways are barely 28 yards wide across on average—”though the PGA TOUR-distance landing zones tend to get pinched and protected (or pocketed) by those gnarly bunkers”—and even the slightest miss can land you deep in that nasty rough. Swedish golfer Ludvig Aberg added it up by saying Oakmont is “one of the hardest places in the world” and that it’s nearly impossible to prepare for. Did the USGA just sit with popcorn and watch the show?

U.S. Open officials brought in ground staff to use hand mowers instead of tractor mowers. Their job wasn’t to completely cut down the rough but to tidy it up carefully, trim it down to about 4¾ inches, and to make the ball sink into the roots instead of resting on top, where it’s easier to hit. But “They’re not working. They’re not cutting s–t,” is what Phil Mickelson had to say on X. And as if all of this wasn’t enough, the frustration got to the fans present at the course as well.

Fans were stuck shoulder-to-shoulder with barely any room to move. Not a single spot on that bridge was empty. The glimpse of it was shared by an X account, Nagels Bagels with the very fitting words, “There’s gotta be a better way,” while tagging USGA’s official X account.

And this is just the first day. If it’s already this bad, what’s the weekend going to look like? Fans are more than agitated.

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Fans share their frustrations

One fan commented, “Beware of the bridge. Got stuck in a massive, bottlenecked crowd today, didn’t feel safe at all.” According to fans, it took them 30–40 minutes to cross the bridge.

Another fan commented, “It’s awful. No reason for the other to be closed. Bad call by them,” while another wrote, “The current fan experience at Oakmont is horrible.”

And some directed concerns like, “Going to be a lot of Pittsburgh sunburn tonight.” Seems like not only do players think the build of Oakmont is terrible, but fans do, too, with one writing, “Course design is terrible.” Oakmont was designed in 1903 by Henry Fownes. “What he wanted was a club that was focused solely on golf that was really difficult,” golf historian Dave Moore had noted.

Looks like Fownes’ aim has been fulfilled in quite a spectacular way.