Maginnes: So, what do squirrels think of new Oakmont?

PGATOUR.com's John Maginnes ran into a furry friend Friday at Oakmont. A friend who used to frolic in the branches of all those trees that were removed for the 107th U.S. Open. So how does Mr. Squirrel like the new Oakmont?

By John Maginnes, PGATOUR.com Contributor

OAKMONT, Pa. -- What am I, a freaking groundhog? Here I am down in a hole in the thick rough between No. 1 and No. 9 at Oakmont Country Club. For the last couple of weeks the grass has been so thick I can't even find my hole. How undignified for a squirrel to be burrowing in the ground like a mole or a worm.
 
It hasn't always been this way. No, not too long ago I roamed the tops of the trees that stood sentry around this grand old golf course. It has the word "oak" in the name, for goodness sake. Wasn't Oakmont hard enough back in 1994 when Ernie Els won. Par was 71 back then, but you changed the par-5 ninth to a par 4 to make it a par 70. That alone should have made it harder.
 
But no, you decided to cut down 5,000 trees and leave far too many of my family and friends homeless. To humans, the golf course is more aesthetically pleasing. What do you care? You don't live in the trees. When we heard that the U.S. Open was coming back here we were as happy as our two-legged friends. The chance to sit high above Tiger and Phil and watch as they arc long irons into Mr. Fownes' diabolical greens was exciting for us.
 
I wasn't old enough back in 1994 to remember the roars and the drama. My father loves to tell stories about perching on our uncle's limb above the 18th green and watching Loren Roberts sink a putt to extend the playoff that beautiful Monday morning. 
 
Uncle Naked Tail (an unfortunate greens mower accident in the early 1980s) was perched left of the 18th green when Larry Nelson edged my great uncle's hero, Tom Terrific to capture his only U.S. Open title. Unc was always a little jealous of the black squirrels on the West Coast that saw his hero hit the shot the year before at Pebble Beach to edge Jack Nicklaus.

Jack broke my great-great grandfather's heart here back in 1962. He was a broad-shouldered squirrel with a wispy tail and paws like anvils. Like all the Oakmont squirrels of his day, they were the smallest soldiers in Arnie's Army. They threw everything from acorns to hot dog wrappers at the Golden Bear that fateful Monday in the playoff. But anyone who knows anything about Nature will tell you that squirrels rarely affect the lives of bears.

No course has ever hosted more U.S. Opens than Oakmont -- dating all the way back to 1927, when Tommy Armour won Oakmont's first national championship. Back then, and for decades to come, Oakmont was a friend to its furry friends. Yes, the course now looks like it did back in the early part of the last century, but, then, you people planted the trees. As the trees grew, our families grew. By the 1970s and '80s we were thriving in the manicured hills of western Pennsylvania. It seems like only yesterday that I was chasing a young, bushy-tailed beauty around the trunk of a towering oak in four-pawed flirtation. 

You became so fond of us that you put one of us on your logo. Can you imagine how insulting it is that you wear us on your shirt and hat, yet you don't want us around anymore? We promise not to steal tea sandwiches off the veranda or knock over iced tea glasses like the scallywags that came before us.

We once had the best seat on the property to watch the best players in the world. Now, Tiger is finally here and we have a nut lottery to see who gets to sit in the branches of the few remaining trees around the clubhouse. Sure, I could migrate to the woods down by the driving range, but I am a golf fan. It's not like I can get on a plane and go to Southern Hills for the PGA Championship in Tulsa. This is my Open, by God, and I am not going to miss it.