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    U.S. Open: At Oakmont, a Rare Changing of the Guard

    Devin Gee, who look over from the longtime club pro, Bob Ford, a few years ago, is working his first Open as pro.Devin Gee is ready for this U.S. Open.His mentor and former boss, Bob Ford, will be standing on the first tee at Oakmont Country Club as he has for the last five U.S. Opens at the club near Pittsburgh. But he will be there in a new role as the starter, reading the names of the players. It will be the first time in over four decades that Ford has not been the head pro at the club for the Open.That role is now held by Gee, who is at Oakmont only because a friend convinced him to take a summer internship in 2006.“I was supposed to go to Medinah that year,” Gee said of the golf club near Chicago. “But some circumstances took me here.”And now he is set to be the face of Oakmont as it hosts a record 10th U.S. Open. “It’s a dream job,” he said. “It’s a prominent place. As you can imagine, anyone going into a job like this, you wonder, am I ready for it?”As at many U.S. Open venues, the head pro job at Oakmont comes open infrequently and is coveted when it does. Winged Foot Golf Club in New York, another anchor site for the United States Golf Association, is only on its seventh head pro in 102 years. The longest tenure went to Claude Harmon, the Masters champion who was there for 31 years.Brendan Walsh is set to become the pro emeritus at the Country Club in Brookline, Mass., after 27 years. His predecessor, Don Callahan, was in that role from 1967 to 1999, with the last several years as pro emeritus.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    U.S. Open: In 1983, Larry Nelson Conquered Oakmont

    He won the U.S. Open on the course where this year’s tournament is being held.​​Ronald Reagan was president and “Flashdance … What a Feeling” topped the charts in June 1983 when Larry Nelson won the U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club just outside Pittsburgh, the site of the national championship, which begins on Thursday. Nelson defeated Tom Watson by a stroke to clinch the second of his three major titles.The two were tied when play in the final round was suspended because of rain with a few holes to play. The next morning, Nelson, who is now 77, made a 62-footer on No. 16 to seize a lead he didn’t relinquish.Nelson, who served in Vietnam and didn’t pick up the game until he was 21, recently spoke about the week at Oakmont.This conversation has been edited and condensed.Is Oakmont the toughest course on the planet?It can be, depending on the way that it is set up. The Open in 1983 was one of the toughest I ever played.How were you feeling going into the week?The year had not been all that good, even though it felt like I was playing pretty good. A lot of things happened the week of the Open. As a matter of fact, my family and I flew up on Monday, but my clubs didn’t get there until Tuesday afternoon. Probably the best thing that could have happened, because I spent a lot of time putting. Anyway, I felt like I was as ready as I could possibly be on Thursday and got off to kind of a rough start.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More