Maginnes: Playing Oakmont is as hard as finding it

It appears that PGATOUR.com's John Maginnes has a great sense of history but a not-so-great sense of direction. Which made his trip to Oakmont for the 107th U.S. Open this week an interesting journey.

By John Maginnes, PGATOUR.com Contributor

OAKMONT, Pa. -- The oldest building in Pittsburgh is the Fort Pitt Blockhouse that dates back to 1764 when the French, English and Native Americans were all vying for the territory. This period of history that leads up to and through the Revolutionary War fascinates me. I would love to see the old Blockhouse but I can't risk trying to find it.

Pittsburgh was founded along the banks where the Allegheny River meets the Monongahela River and creates the Ohio River. If that sentence is confusing, it is supposed to be. Today those lovely rivers make getting around Pittsburgh for the unassimilated as difficult as shooting the moon with a BB gun.

If you are coming to the U.S. Open at Oakmont and happen to be flying in you will need satellite imaging, two tanks of gas and a native -- and you'll still get lost on the way. Oakmont is so hard to find that when you try to find it on Google Earth you start with an image of Pittsburgh -- and as it starts moving northeast, it gets lost on the wrong side of the river and can't pull it up. (No. Don't try it. It's a joke.)

When old man Fownes designed Oakmont more than 100 years ago he couldn't know that his golf course would be among the hardest in the world in the 2007. He couldn't know how the confounding greens, which have gone virtually untouched during that span, would develop a strain of poa annua that is unique to only Oakmont. He couldn't have done that on purpose.

He also couldn't have known that a modern highway system would someday be developed that made his gem harder to find than Paris Hilton's sense of responsibility. Yes, I know that is a cheap shot, but I didn't build the highways.

The truth is that Pittsburgh is truly a great American city. I pick on it because I am a man and I don't stop for directions. Fortunately, Bob Friend guided me into the course on Tuesday and I should be fine the rest of the week.

The Pirates are in town this week and there is an air show at the airport. Pittsburgh's nearly 2 million residents have a truly unique city of which to be proud. Pittsburgh is a city that has never been afraid to roll up its sleeves and get a little dirty. At day's end, they quench their well-earned thirst with Iron City Beer. The best place to have one is in right field at PNC Park.

Pittsburgh is a town that works hard and plays hard. I first fell in love with the city reading about the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 when the farmers refused to pay taxes for their libation. But it was a century and a half later that the city formed its identity as the "steel city." According to Stefan Lorant's "Pittsburgh, The Story of an American City," those mills cranked out 95 million tons of steel to aid the Allied War effort.

Prior to that, fortunes were made in Pittsburgh by hard-working men with names like Carnegie, Mellon and Schwab. The history of this city is truly a great American success story that keeps adding chapters.

This week another chapter of sports history will be written on the hills that grow out of the rivers. Oakmont Country Club will once again crown a national champion of golf. The player who wins will have to bring the same blue collar mentality to the golf course each day that made this city great.

As it turns out, getting to Oakmont may just prove to be the easiest part of the journey this week. Getting around it will prove much tougher.