Press conference highlights ahead of the 2025 U.S. Open at Oakmont:
Dustin Johnson: (4:45)
– How does it feel to be back at Oakmont?
– How do the conditions compare to when you won in 2026?
– How did you manage to shoot -4 or -5 last time?
– What has your game been like the last few weeks?
– Do you feel your game has slipped at all in the last couple of years?
Xander Schauffele: (4:13)
– What is it about U.S. Open golf that seems to suit you?
– Does a course this difficult accentuate the skills of the best or level the field?
– Why do you enjoy the difficulty of a course like this?
– What’s your definition of a good attitude?
– Are you ok with hack-out rough?
– What do you think a decent winning score would be this week?
– Do you enjoy places that are closer to pay compared to -15 or -16?
Justin Thomas: (6:04)
– What’s your mindset when you arrive at a U.S. Open?
– What have you seen of the course so far?
– How does the USGA challenge your skill and also mental game?
– Does rain take the edge away from these greens?
– Are you against Hack-out rough?
– Do you think this course will psych some players out?
strong start to the press conference schedule on Monday at the US Open at Oakmont there you can see Dustin Johnson Matt Vults who’s the amateur Xander Schoffé and Justin Thomas all addressed the media on Monday on Tuesday on tap John Rom Rory Mroy Bryson Dambo Colin Morawa and Scotty Sheffle on Wednesday the USGAA press conference will be held and then Saturday Johnny Miller and Jack Nicholas will address the media so so cool indeed all right let’s talk about what took place yesterday we start with Dustin Johnson the 2016 champion right at Oakmont it It feels really good um I mean the course is just as hard as I remember if not harder uh so but yeah I mean I like coming back here i love the golf course and first time I played it you know probably two weeks prior to the 2016 Open so yeah I mean it’s uh obviously a lot of good memories from that year and you know coming back I was back here one other time when I got my honorary membership here uh for that ceremony which was really nice and proud member of Oakmont i’m probably their favorite member cuz I never come but uh but yeah uh you know it’s really nice to be back you won the US Open here on a very wet week how do the conditions right now compare to what you had that year um they’re really similar i mean you know it’s it’s uh soft which makes the fairways a little bit easier to hit and you know the greens a little bit easier to hold but um it plays longer so you have longer clubs in but this the conditions right now are similar hopefully it’ll be dry little we won’t get any more rain and it’ll dry out a little bit by by Thursday if it’s that hard how did you shoot four under last time or five under take your pick five under um I drove it really straight i mean that’s I mean I hit a lot of fairways that was the you know the only reason I I shot shot that well um yeah i mean I think I don’t know it seems like it’s it’s tougher this time around and but that’s just maybe with a little bit of added length um you know it’s going to make it a little more difficult but yeah somehow I I’ve figured out a way to to get it under par on the right Dave it was mostly the driving i mean obviously even driving in the fairway here it’s still really difficult but I hit a lot of lot of good drives and a lot of good iron shots what has your game been like the last few weeks yeah I mean I feel like my game’s been really close um haven’t really got a lot out of it um you know so it was definitely nice to have a nice finish uh last week I played good every day i didn’t you know still kind of giving away some shots um that I need to clean that up a little bit but um played really solid every day um hit it nice gave myself a lot of opportunities just still you know kind of kind of gave some shots away each round um did it you know you can’t can’t afford to do at a golf course like this but um it was nice to you know finally see the game progress a little bit um you know I know my score didn’t reflect it at the PGA but actually played way better than the score i just struggled a little bit on the greens well maybe that’s an understatement i struggled really bad on the greens um have you felt that your game has slipped at all the last couple years and and if it hasn’t is it just f a fine line here between what you’ve you know you were accomplishing and maybe yeah I mean frustrations at the golf is uh is a is a strange sport and yeah I mean I don’t feel like I’ve slipped any you know my scores hasn’t haven’t reflected you know you know what but it is a really fine line um I mean you know I remember a few years ago I think you know I missed two cuts in a row i don’t think I think I shot 8080 and then I won the next week it’s not you know it’s for me it’s always really close to being good but um you know just getting back there and then keeping it consistent which over the last couple months I’ve I’ve starting to see see a lot of patterns and you know the game feels like it’s coming back into good form can being back at a place where you won give you some type of edge or confidence or do anything i mean you know good memories here obviously it was a it was a long time ago but yeah defin I mean I have confidence at this golf course cuz I know I played well and you know but obviously this week is you know puts a lot of pressure on the driver felt like I’m driving the ball really good right now so um but yeah I mean even from there though it it doesn’t get any get much easier but you know you definitely have to hit in the fairway if you want a chance to win around here from there you heard me mention uh Xander Schoffé and Xander Schoffé who won two major championships last year is he poised to strike again in 2025 i don’t know maybe I’m just sick and enjoy the challenge something about it playing really hard and you know I think a good attitude goes a long way so it’s obviously a hard thing easier said than done hard to keep a good attitude through the entire stretch of you know 72 holes nonetheless you know practice rounds as well so I don’t know it’s I think they’re a lot of fun uh when you have greens that are abnormally fast and rough that’s abnormally long do you think the skill sets for good players in those I guess areas are like accentuated by setups like this or does it kind of get leveled out when it’s all abnormal to you guys i think he just puts an emphas emphasis on hitting the fairway and hitting greens so if you’re a premier ball striker you’ll be licking your chops um and yeah that that’s pretty much it i mean you’re you’re legit in the fairway uh in the first cut or it’s pretty hard to be in the bunker and have an open shot to a green typically you seem to be up up in it so you’re just kind of taking your medicine and then if you’re in the rough it’s very lie dependent so I mean for the most part uh the only control you can have is if you keep it right in front of you kind of mentioned how tough this course is where does that enjoyment come from in challenging yourself against places like It’s a challenge it’s challenging myself to to try and hit every fairway uh to try and hit every green to try and be disciplined through through like through and through you know um you know there’s going to be a point where you you lay up into the into a bad spot um and it goes to laying up again from that layup spot so you know if you have a decent lie you might try and take some risk and and that’s part of the fun what’s your definition of a good attitude uh like truly being positive or for me at least good attitudes being levelheaded you know um I think I look pretty level-headed when I play but internally I might be absolutely just thrashing myself so um I think like having a true like truly having a good attitude is just sort of accepting what happened and allowing yourself to be pretty much at zero to hit the next shot how often are you thrashing yourself do you think pretty often to be honest Doug yeah uh are you okay with hackout rough if there’s you know it’s the US Open yeah okay i mean because you know some people think that’s I mean I don’t think people I don’t think people turn the TV on to to watch you know some some of the guys just hit like a 200 yard shot on the green you know what I mean i think they’re watching they turn the US Open to to see a guy shooting eight over and and suffer you know that’s part of like the enjoyment of playing in the US Open for viewers what’s a reasonable winning score out here based on what you’ve seen so far yeah I mean in 16 it was they got some rain as well and from what I can remember you know from what I’ve watched uh balls were sort of guys were stopping iron shots um guys had a few more irons off TE’s i mean not a lot but you know I remember seeing a few guys hitting I don’t know three three maybe three or four irons off TE’s i feel like they’ve lengthened those holes to where they’re not you know I feel like you’re only hitting maybe one iron off a tee this week or maybe two so um you know I think anything close to par is sort of what they want here i mean the members absolutely love their property and the members absolutely want it to be overpar so um I know what they’re rooting for and generally do you enjoy places that I guess are closer to par or maybe where par feels like a better score than when it’s you know 15 17 under yeah you just got to get yourself there mentally you know there’s times where I mean the better you hit it the more likely you are to feel like you might be able to uh you know like nine for example i mean if you hit if you hit a driver in the fairway on nine every day you know landing your ball into a pretty severely pitched green like you might feel like you can bury that hole a couple days i know that’s kind of weird to say with how like steep the green is birdies just shouldn’t even you shouldn’t even think about it if you like pull or push an iron and it goes to tap like you should be stoked about it but at the end of the day you know like if you’re take Scotty Shuffler for example he’s like in the middle of every fairway like there takes a serious amount of discipline to play away from pins and hit really good shots to sort of safe targets and that’s what it takes to play well at US Opens and then Justin Thomas himself a two-time major champion speaking to the fact that he’s actually been playing pretty well this year how does he feel he’ll fare at Oakmont here you go i mean I feel like you you kind of take the course for what it is and obviously Oakmont is is Oakmont um you know what you’re getting it’s it’s pretty right in front of you and um you know you just have to really try to be as as sharp as you can but um you know for me personally I just feel like it’s it’s a great week to be in a great place mentally and very very patient and um and kind of picking our spots out there so um uh you know hopefully the weather can be nice to us the rest of the week and and can soften the or firm the course up a little bit and it’ll be a nice test what have you seen out of the course so far i just played nine this morning uh it is very very soft the fairways are uh I mean they’ve obviously gotten a lot of rain here the the last couple weeks I think but um you know it’s still extremely challenging it’s just you know hit the fairway and then if you don’t hit the fairway you’re just kind of trying to base off of the live figure out what you’re doing from there the rest of the hole um and just try to minimize the damage when you get out of position on the right Doug they they talk the USGA talks a lot about challenging your skill and challenging your head how do they challenge the the head um I mean I think the the good thing for them they’re fortunate you know with uh kind of like the the main core of US Open courses they don’t they don’t really have to do anything to try to to do that you know I mean you go to a place like this they don’t need to set it up any differently or or trick it up or do anything for it to challenge both the physical and mental part of our game uh Oakmont is is plenty challenging in both uh both of those aspects but um you know I just think it it it requires just just patience and um and discipline uh just because it’s you know you may you if you just get lazy like on any any drive any wet shot any chip any putt you you know you can look you can kind of look stupid pretty pretty fast especially at a place like this what’s it mean to have a good attitude it’s a great question i’m sure everybody would define it differently i mean I think for me just being being very committed to what I’m doing uh being kind of accepting of of the results and and being um just very very committed is for me i think once I start second guessing myself or not you know trusting my instincts is kind of where I get myself in trouble and then you know when I do that then I naturally am pretty pissed off if it doesn’t work out because it wasn’t because of the shot it was more from the lack of commitment so that’s where it starts with me generally obviously the reputation here a lot of it is with the greens and their firmness and speed and everything does does the rain take any of that away or are they still really difficult still firm or or and if it’s any less is it does it make it any any much easier anytime the greens are softer it’s going to be easier than if they’re firmer but uh these greens are still far from from normal or easy i mean it’s uh you know they’re Jordan i played with Jordan and and and Jackson Kovven today and Jordan and I were saying it was um we were still shocked for how soft the fairways were the green still had a little bit of bounce to them i mean they weren’t firm by any means but you know they were still taking a hop with with wedges and and short iron still but um no I mean that just the amount that the putts break and and the amount uh how quick some of the chips and and around the holes can be uh you know it’s it’s still it’s still difficult if it’s if it’s firm or soft it just changes changes it a little bit if if it’s one or the other are you against hackout rough or are you okay with it i don’t know i mean I’m I’m fine with it i don’t know i I I understand the the strategy aspect to people are like “Well it doesn’t require any thought you just take a lob wedge and hack it out.” But it to me it’s like well at the same time that that just puts even more of a priority on hitting the ball straight which I would think is is going to uh lessen the chances of guys just pulling driver out of their bag and sending as far as they can every hole but also I mean you know like Jackson had a lie on 15 today that we were kind of like thinking is it a sixiron could you is it a open up a six or could you get seven and and he tried to hit sixiron and it looked like he could and he hit it like four feet in front of him so it it’s not like every time you hit in the rough you’re grabbing lob wedge and hitting out you have to think you know how far can I hit this and I think that to me um there’s no such thing as as complete hackout rough like these guys i mean we’re going to get luck some a lot of people walking in the rough you’re going to get some lies that are decent but you’re going to have some some tempting lies uh that may you know guys might try to push the envelope when they shouldn’t kind of thing how much does this course psych a lot of the other players out who heard so much about this course and how difficult it is and how do you maintain your mental focus after having played here in 2016 uh yeah it I’m sure it does a lot um I mean being perfectly honest and very selfish I hope it psyches a lot of players out um and uh but it’s it’s just it’s a part of the preparation like like trying to you know go hit wedges or trying to get the speed of the greens or anything it’s it’s getting a game plan for you know how you’re going to approach the course mentally and strategically and um you know I I understand this place is hard i don’t I don’t you know I don’t need to read articles or I don’t need to hear horror stories like I I’ve played it i know it’s difficult but um you know I I also have faith that if I go I go play well and I’m driving the ball well and hitting my irons like I know I can um I’m going to have a lot of birdie opportunities so I just need to you know kind of pick my spots and and take the hole in the course for kind of what I have that day kind of
