Why is the Oakmont club green? Here’s what we know

The Oakmont Country Club is famous for its greens, placing the surfaces as challenging as any in the game. But the club is also visible to green – The distinctive color of its historical club.

The building, which was opened in 1904, in the same year as the course, is filled with photographs and memoranda that document the rich past of the Oakmont Championship, and no one knows more about those artifacts than David Moore, curator of the club’s collections.

However, there is a question that Moore cannot answer.

It’s about that color. Why is the Green Club?

“If I had to imagine, white and green would mix in the golf course,” Moore says. “It mixes in the surroundings when you are not here. But as you go out on highway 9, and the Fairway No. 18, it starts to return to your own and is here.”

What Moore and others can say for sure is that a green club was not in the original planet. A water color ranking created by the prominent Pittsburgh Architect Edward Stotz to sell the founder of the Henry C. Fowns in his vision for the club, shows a reddish-brown exterior more similar to that of traditional 20th century Tudor return buildings. An article in the opening of the club that appeared at the time in the Pittsburgh press draws a similar view. He describes the building as gray and red.

Black and white pictures from the era make it difficult to distinguish exactly when and why the Oakmont changed the color of the club. But the painted postcards and portraits give a mirror. A postcard from 1908 shows a gray roof with red shingler down gables. Another from 1914 depicts a green roof with half shaking gray on the gables and herpes below. Visual evidence suggests that color change occurred early in the club’s history.

For a more comprehensive look at that story, Moore led Golf.com on a wide tour of the club club and its artifacts. You can see the full feature in the Player video below or in our YouTube channel.