Frank Nobilo on the 2025 U.S. Open, Oakmont's Challenges, Scottie Scheffler's Dominance

Between 1994 and 1997, Frank Nobilo finished in the top 10 in all four major championships, including at the 1994 U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club. Today, the New Zealand native remains a powerful voice in golf, offering his perspective as a member of the CBS broadcast team. 

Prior to this year’s U.S. Open, I spoke with Nobilo about the design of Oakmont, the evolution of the game, Scottie Scheffler, and much more. 

‍You played in the final pairing of the 1994 U.S. Open at Oakmont. What are your memories from that day?

Frank Nobilo: That's a good way to start. I guess the biggest memory was playing with a guy that went on to win, which is Ernie Els. It was my first U.S. Open. 

Obviously, I didn't expect to play as well as I did, getting in the last group with Ernie on the last day. Shooting 70 either would have won or at least made the playoff and I shot my usual sort of Sunday 75. So it was bittersweet, but I thought I was playing with a future world No. 1 to be honest. 

It was a great golf course. It lived up to its expectations. Everybody said it was hard. And it was as hard of a golf course as I ever played.

Players talk about being in the final group of a major as if it’s a completely different feeling than they’re used to. What kind of emotions and nerves did you feel on that first tee box?

Well I had the luxury of playing in the 1978 Eisenhower Trophy, which is the World Amateur Team event. I'll never forget going to the first tee there. That was my first real experience where things don't feel normal. The club doesn't feel right in your hands. Thinking back, I’ve had days where it honestly felt like somebody had regripped your clubs and made them fatter or thinner. They just didn't feel the same.

So it was the same at Oakmont. You know the day before that you're going to be out in the last group, so you try to prepare, you try to take things a little slowly. You give yourself plenty of time to warm up. You don't want to be rushed.  But when your name is announced in that last group and you realize that everybody else has teed off, it's a totally different feeling. 

You have a rush of adrenaline, the club just seems a little harder to grip and you know the day is going to be a little peculiar, I think would be the best way to describe it. But you have energy to burn. You have this incredible reservoir of energy. If anything, too much. But it's what you play for. 

I remember in my early 20s, I was playing in some event and Jack Nicklaus happened to be there. I was surprised that he knew my name, but he sort of looked at me and said, “What's up?” And I remember just saying, “I'm nervous.” And he goes, “That's great. You wouldn't want it any other way.” 

The best just deal with it. If you don't have nerves, you shouldn't play. But the best do a far better job when nerves are running through the body.

What are the defining characteristics of the test that is Oakmont?

Hard. Just brutally hard. In 1994, Oakmont had a lot of trees. It didn't have the removal of 10,000 to 15,000 trees that have been removed now, so a lot of the holes were tree-lined. Beautiful bunkering. Very, very thick, juicy, rough. 

I played U.S. Opens in the David Eger era and that’s when driving was paramount. It was a straight driver’s championship. Eger had a very simple formula. Don't hit it straight, you're out. Don't hit it any good, you're definitely out. Don't chip and putt well, you’re out. And if you can't handle the situation and your nerves, then you're out. It was a simple formula, and it produced some great champions. 

Oakmont was a course, where from the very first hole, you knew if you strayed off line, you're in trouble. The greens at Oakmont are more domed, so it's fine to say “Oh, just hit it in the middle of the green,” but if the shot came in a little flat or curving one way or the other, the ball would tend to stray off that middle line and then it would run off the banks and just far enough that all of a sudden chipping was very, very difficult. Probably the hardest set of greens I've ever tried to hit the ball close on. It didn’t matter if you had a wedge or a short iron in your hand. I always thought it was very, very hard to judge exactly where you wanted to land the ball. 

Of course, when I played, the greens were probably Stimping at 12. Now they're 15. The Stimpmeter even came about because of Oakmont in 1935. Edward Stimpson watched that Open back in 1935. If you go back, greens were never double figures, even when they said they were quick. But now they're fast. And while the guys hit it as far as they do, they're still faced with those second shots into greens that are domed and just very, very difficult.

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With a setup like Oakmont, sometimes the conversation becomes about toeing the line between challenging and gimmicky. In your view, is anything at Oakmont over that line to where the challenge becomes a gimmick?

It’s a clever question because it involves technology. Originally, if you go back in history to when it was first developed, Oakmont was a par 80. And it was 6,400 yards. You look at it now, it's 1,000 yards longer and it's a par 70. I know things evolve. But if you go through, when Hogan played, for example in the 50s, it was predominantly a driver golf course.

And then fast forward to when Angel Cabrera won in 2007 and Dustin Johnson in 2016, there were fewer drivers hit. There'll be even fewer drivers hit probably this year as well. Distance off the tee has certainly changed the parameters that decide a U.S. Open champion. And then to meet that challenge – and we've got to be honest and say to keep par more relative – the green speeds have gone up. In 1977, I don't remember obviously because I was a teenage kid and wasn't playing there, but I know they had Stimp values and I think they were 9.8. They were considerably faster than any greens in the world. Well, they're 50% quicker now. So it just means everything: chipping, putting, iron play, everything is being pushed to the limit. If you get a breeze, you have less friction. 

So I wouldn't want to use the word gimmicky, but yes, it pushes you closer to the edge. We see that at Shinnecock. We see that with a lot of great courses like Pinehurst No. 2. The challenge has changed. It's more about the greens and what's around it. 

Sadly, golf has changed so dramatically within the last 20 to 25 years.

Henry Fownes designed Oakmont after a trip to Scotland and it is said that links golf served as an inspiration for the design. Do you see that in Oakmont and do you feel like the ground game is more of a factor at Oakmont than most of the professional golf that we see week in and week out?

If you play it when it's not a U.S. Open, very much so. (Lee) Trevino used to say that Oakmont is the only course in America where you could hold a U.S. Open tomorrow. When the rough is a little more forgiving and not all the bunkers are in the rough, you definitely see some of those architectural characteristics that Fownes fell in love with. But remember, Fownes’ goal for that course in the first place was for it to be the hardest golf course in America. And that's what it was.

So on one hand, you're wrestling with that. You want it to be this very, very difficult test. Then when you look at an Open Championship venue, there are so many different avenues. The U.S. Open really restricts the corridors. An Open Championship normally increases the amount of corridors. 

There are some great architectural tidbits in the golf course. No two greens are the same, just the way in which they roll. That's very much like an Open Championship. Originally, they couldn't get the greens all the same speeds because of that. It does have that more natural feel outside of the U.S. Open. So yes, I would say there are a lot of similarities, especially now that the trees are gone.

In an interview with Gary Williams in November of 2023, you said you hate seeing bunkers in the rough and surrounded by rough. Can you elaborate on that?

All you have to do is turn on the TV now and when the ball is going left or right off the tee, a player will often say, “Get in the bunker.” Well, that's really not how it should be. Nowadays because of equipment, everybody has an idea of how to make the game tougher. They don't say better. They always say tougher, right? In other words, these guys shoot 20 something under par, and I'm like, “Surely, we should be saying better for a start.”

When you have these wonderful bunkers and you just stick grass around them, they're basically rough. That's all you're doing. They're a pit. And the only difference is that the grass has sand in it. If you look at some of the great bunkering we see around the world, I believe the ball should be able to run into it. Fairways might look bigger, but they'll play smaller because of the release. 

If you put an apron of rough around them or put the bunkers in the rough, the ball is either in or out. We lose that extra dimension that golf was all about. When you go to St. Andrews, for example, with the exception of maybe the first hole and one other, anybody could play. You could top it along the ground and play St. Andrews. That's sort of the way golf was. It wasn't a forced carry. 

In my opinion, I’ve always thought bunkering helps define the shape of the hole. Bunkers shouldn't be peripheral. I think they should be paramount. They make holes look beautiful. And I think they should be in play.

Before we move on from Oakmont, are there any underappreciated holes that people should be tuned into as they watch the U.S. Open this week?

The short holes really: No. 2 and No. 17 always drive people crazy. They're tweener holes and great courses have a lot of tweener holes. They can be a difficult par 4 where a par is a slight gain. It can be an easy par 4 where a birdie is a slight gain but a lot of things can happen. In the U.S. Opens that I've seen over the years at Oakmont and in the one I played back in 1994, No. 17 was pivotal.

As it was with Angel Cabrera and Jim Furyk and Tiger Woods. It was drivable, but you can get out of position. I remember I did a recreation of the shot Tiger had in the right bunker on No. 17. Steve Williams hadn't raked the bunker. The footprints were still there, so you knew the exact spot where he was. I remember going in there and you really couldn't see how deep that bunker was on TV. But going into that bunker and holding a camera at eye level, you could barely see the top of the flagstick. There’s a lot of guesstimation in a shot like that. 

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The second hole is the same. The green is on more than a 45-degree angle and it steps up to the left. The short path will goose you because you think, “Okay, we've had some of the longer ones. Now, finally I've got a birdie hole,” but those holes will just turn you over in a heartbeat. It nearly cost Ernie Els the Open in the playoff with Colin Montgomerie and Loren Roberts. 

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No. 16 is just a great hole. It has an avenue on the left side that has to be respected and that'll feed the ball to some of the hole locations. 

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And then 18, until the guys were hitting short irons in, I always thought it’s just a great finishing hole. It has a slightly elevated tee so you see everything in front: the green pitched up a little bit and moves slightly to the left. It's wonderful. 

No. 10 also, 10 is always brutal. That hole is a sucker. You're looking down the hill and if you just miss the middle corridor there a little bit, that thing just gets dragged off. For a big green, it plays incredibly small. 

I have always wanted to go back with a camera. I think you could just take some marvelous pictures of that golf course that show one green more rounded or bullnose than the other, some a little flatter, with easier entry. So many wonderful parts to it.

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You've touched on the relationship between green speeds and technology and the way the game has aged. It’s something you’ll see on clear display at Oakmont because if you're going to turn green speeds up, you either have to soften slopes or expand the green surfaces, right? It’s one of the two. 

It happens all the way around the world. Earlier we referenced Edward Stimpson in 1935. He came up with the idea: effectively just hold a three-foot ruler up on a 20-degree angle and see how far the ball rolls. That's pretty much what the Stimpmeter is. And then it became a competition. 

Up until then, greens were sort of right for the environment you played in. But then you had the competitive aspect of, what does your course run at? People didn't know. They just knew that theirs were fine. If you had a lot of undulations or if you played in Scotland, for example, where the wind is blowing 30 miles an hour, the course had to be playable. There was never a conversation about the speed of greens. That's the sport. That's what it was. But then it became a competition amongst clubs. 

And then it became a way, I guess, of nullifying some of the best players’ talents. In other words, it kept par more relevant, but you’re starting to mess with architecture and other things. Like if I make the greens quicker, I can't have as much slope. Then you can’t have the same golf course. It's the same as when everybody starts hitting the ball 50 yards farther. What do you do? You push another tee 50 yards farther back. We make the game slower and slower. What's happened in the last 20 years that’s made the game better or quicker?

And some people would say, “I hit my driver farther.” That's it. That's pretty much what comes out or that they have a lob wedge now. But did it really make it better? 

Golf should always be an athletic endeavor at the highest level, don't get me wrong. But we've designed equipment for the rank and file that the best players in the world have figured out a way, to use a Formula One analogy, to get around there quicker. 

Green speeds are just one part of it. We’re the only sport that's literally exploded in every direction, except probably the direction the game should have headed. Everything has been changed. The ball you use, the equipment you use to hit it, the field of play. Even Wimbledon slowed their surfaces down to try and make the game more compatible. 

We’re going to have to do something. Maybe it’s not just rolling the ball back. Maybe you're going to have to put some spin on it. We're going to have to go back to where the ball is actually part of the game and it gives some pleasure. Because the ball just going a farther distance doesn't necessarily create more skill or allow the average amateur to enjoy the game any more, as far as I'm concerned.

We're just making it a longer walk.

You discussed technology in an interview with Golf Australia in 2018. One of your quotes was that the professional game has never been more divorced from the amateur game. So Frank, you've just been appointed czar of golf. What are those changes that you'd like to see implemented?

It's really hard, Joseph, because I think there has to be an admission that we went off course and that's the number one fight. The game is turning to commerce, right? That's the biggest thing, first and foremost. So if you think about a wave taking you out as opposed to bringing you in, I think we have to realize how far the wave of technology has taken us away from the shore.

And then you can start to look at it and say well, what happened? Well, Frank Thomas knew about graphite shafts and what metal heads were going to do. And it was sort of left unchecked. For example, just the (Coefficient of Restitution) of a wooden wood varied between, I think it was 0.7 and 0.78. With drivers now, it's 0.83 and it's on the limit. 

Manufacturers – if you're one of the best players in the world – you're not going to get something that's safe. It's like I said, Formula One, once again, they want to give you something that's right on the edge. Players don't know that. They're just going to go on the range, “I like this one. I hit it four yards farther.” Why wouldn't you put it in your bag? So you can see that the manufacturers are driving the bus and even some of their own athletes are the ones getting in trouble. They’re just pushing the envelope. 

So the first thing that I would have done: metal woods, which I think were a great idea going forward and all that, I would have made the COR very, very similar to what wood was. And also while we're on that subject: the average driver in those days, I think it was 180 to 200 CCs. We're double that now, right? So we've allowed the club to get bigger, lighter, and the shafts to get longer. And that all sort of snuck through without anyone watching. You could go, “Well, what's the big deal, right?” Jack Nicklaus we saw (Memorial) week, his driver was 43 inches long. You’ve got guys now with drivers that are 46 inches long.

If you do the math on that, every half of an inch is normally one mile an hour, by memory, of club head speed, which is like two and a half yards. So now, do the math, work it out. I'm just giving you yardage, just giving it to you. So then what are we going to do? We're just going to go to every golf course and we'll add on 30 or 40 yards. There's a cost. There's always a cost, a cost, a cost, a cost, a cost. And just to get into golf now too, it's so expensive.

I think it's the greatest game in the world. I struggle to play these days or I don't play really, I’ve broken down and all that. But I love the game because I got access to it when I was a kid. I played a public golf course like most people. And you want that access to be available. The First Tee program, I think that's the floor of the program. We get kids involved until 18 or 19, maybe their early 20s and, well, you can't afford to join a golf club. And do you want to put $2,000 or $3,000 on a set of golf clubs? We drive them out of the game.

We've got it back to front. So yeah, I'm never going to be the czar of golf, and they probably wouldn't want me sitting in the room either for a number of reasons.

You mentioned in that Golf Australia interview that back in the 90s, you had gone to the dinner for international players at the Masters and that everyone was very concerned about where the game was headed. To the extent you're comfortable revealing those details, can you elaborate on who all was concerned?

One of the beauties of being an international player in those days is that there was always a Tuesday dinner. The conversation then in the early 90s really was about the loft of the driver. It was still a softer golf ball, so we thought that because of what you could do with the metal wood, that loft would go less and less. This was pre launch monitors. 

We were actually hearing about a six-degree driver then. We thought loft would go the other way. One of the other biggest discussions, too, was adding loft in the other direction. A 56-degree was commonly the loftiest club in the bag. (Seve Ballesteros) was still alive and had one of the greatest short games I'll ever see. Just brilliant, the way in which he could see a shot. But by adding loft, you're giving some guys a club to produce a shot when maybe they didn't have the talent. That's the easiest way to put that.

So both ends were exploding. At one end, which is the longer part of the game, you're going to cheat some yardage off. And then at the other end, you're going to give a guy a shot that maybe he didn't really have in his bag. So the discussion really was with limiting loft on both ends. It was great to actually be able to sit down and talk to people that, to be honest, didn't have an agenda then. The commonality was the love of the game and wanting to keep steering it in the right direction. Sadly, both of those ends went.

But I think for the recreational player, it's absolutely fine. I was always against bifurcation. Always. Because I always thought one of the greatest things about this game is that we could all play the same courses and we could all basically use the same equipment. But sadly with what's happened over the last 20 or 30 years, the game is split. It's still a great game. Don't get me wrong. But there is a massive divide. 

I think one of the ways to go forward now, sadly, is to bifurcate. For the elite players, it would be a little bit like baseball, with a wooden bat in the pros and an aluminum bat for the amateurs. You just can't keep going back, back, back with tees and more and more property. 

So sadly, I think bifurcation is one way forward now.

The other thing, when you look at periods of time where equipment was relatively stable, you had periods where the game was dominated by certain players. But I would argue Tiger Woods, for example, was disadvantaged by a lot of those changes, lofty woods, hybrids, because he was a great long iron player.

I could also argue that if Lee Trevino had access to 7-woods and 5-woods, he probably would have won at Augusta. So it's about being in the right time and the right place. But if you're a professional, your job is to try and shoot the lowest score. And I admire them for it, but they're not necessarily the poster children for pushing the game in the right direction.

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The European Tour played an integral role in your career ascent and your path through professional golf. What is your perspective on the stature of the DP World Tour today and what should the DP World Tour's place be in the pecking order of the golf landscape? 

That’s a hard one. There was a pathway when I first turned pro. Nobody went straight to America. We all went to the Far East and then we went to Europe and then eventually, if you were good enough, the last hurdle was to get on the PGA Tour. I still think that's the game because with all the travel, people would much rather stay at home. 

You can play the PGA Tour. You play for more money. The courses are well-conditioned. There's less travel. You don't have to get out your passport every week. If you were a non-European player, it was difficult playing in Europe, but it was a part of my life that I would never replace because you learn. You learn different countries and cultures. You learned that you weren't such a big deal when you went to some of these places because golf was a little bit further down the pecking list. It was a great education, traveling around the world. I still think that's really important. It can’t be understated how important travel is to furthering your own life and beliefs. 

But from a golf point of view, you have all of these national opens in Europe on the DP World Tour, or the European Tour as I knew it. In those days, I thought it was pretty close to the world tour. It did reach Australasia. They played a tournament in Perth that was part of the European Tour. It did reach Asia. It already did all those things. 

But I think as they opened up the access into the PGA Tour, (the PGA Tour) just started taking more players. I didn't play as much at home. I think all of us in some respects, if we put our hand on our heart, would say we turned our backs on our own tour because we got spoiled. I could play a tournament in America for X number of dollars where I would have to play three or four times in Australasia. 

That’s the truth of it and it exists today. That’s the way it is. Why work three weeks when you can work one? That's pretty much what it was like. A lot of people don't want to admit to that, but that's the truth of it all. And that's really what's hurt the European Tour and also other events around the world. 

You can argue, yes, LIV is going around the world. All those players are under contract. In some respects it's good because, I don't have to agree with it, but if it's showcasing some of these players to developing nations and getting more golfers, and if there are no other tournaments that are doing that, then that's not all bad. 

The PGA Tour is a great brand. I still think there is more we can do here, too. For example, I'll be going to Scotland in a few weeks for the co-sanctioned event. I think the Scottish Open is doing really well. But once again, I don't think a player that lives or is born in America wants to travel around the world when he can stay at home. I don't fault them for that.

It’s an easy discussion to have and point the finger and say, “The PGA Tour doesn't travel.”  Well, if you ask all the players, do they really want to travel all the time? And then if you're a European player, where do you want to finish up playing? So I don't fault the tours at all. They're doing the best they can. If it wasn't for Europe, I wouldn't be here and I wouldn't be doing the job I'm doing.

I don't think there's a right answer, but it's a very important part of professional golf.

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Have Australia and New Zealand been neglected from the professional golf calendar? How do we get more prestigious events to that region of the world?

Yeah, money, basically money. To get top players to go down there, more often than not, you have to pay appearance money. Or you try to get a home player to come back. But if you're going to pay someone else to come down, then another golfer who has an equivalent world ranking or spot on a money list says, “What about me? Why am I expected to go free?” 

You just get into that bargaining situation that's never healthy for developing. Sadly, it's just part of the evolution as the game has gotten bigger, like a lot of sports that are American-centric and the money went up. If you're a professional, that's where you go. You could say the same of TV. You work in American TV because normally the jobs are better. The tournaments are better than elsewhere. That's the truth of it. 

So in order for us to compete in Australasia –  there are some phenomenal courses as you know – but you need money. At the moment, you’re trying to get the players to develop and be good enough to go elsewhere, but in the end you need them to come back to help the next generation. And currently that structure is not in there because it's purely financial. I think that is where LIV succeeds in a certain way. And if we can't get them down there one way, then having them part of another tour, maybe that's the better thing for it.

Scottie Scheffler is all the rage right now entering the U.S. Open. There are “best player since Tiger” comparisons. You’ve played alongside legends of the game and seen many great players come and go. Are we being prisoners of the moment with Tiger comparisons? Assuming Scottie stays healthy, what is a realistic major career major win total for him?

I think I'd get the answer wrong whichever way I went. If you said 10, for example, you could be under or overselling it. I've never seen a guy understand what's required for the game the way it is right now. Is he the longest hitter? No, he's not. But as the game stands right now, I think hitting the ball around 300 yards is totally adequate. 

If all of a sudden, he becomes short relative to the other guys he's playing with, then he gets hurt. So maybe he gets hurt by the next technological shift. But just seeing him switch, for example, from a two-iron for the PGA Championship then straight back into a 5-wood, he knows exactly how he plays golf. I never want to use the word boring because if you're really a student of the game, then the goal is to be as efficient as possible. 

It’s a four-day event. It’s not, “How low can you go today?” So if it's a four-day event, you're not always going to get out of bed and feel great. There's always a little bit of adaptation. He adapts from Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday better than any other player I've ever seen. You have to go back to Nicklaus and Woods. So it’s a fair comparison. He understands what a par means. And he just stays in the moment. 

The other thing that I'm super impressed with is that he hits the same shot that he would hit whether he was one behind or one in front. That's really hard to do. He selects the right shot for the hole, and then he trusts himself to hit that shot. I know the Byron Nelson at TPC Craig Ranch isn't necessarily a great litmus test of this, but he had a tough shot, I think it was Friday, he had like a 3-iron across a little bit of water. He already had a lead, but it was an average lie. But Scottie knew with his talents, that was the shot.

It doesn’t matter if he's 4 over, 4 under, leading by five, or trailing by five, he hits it. When he won at Augusta, he didn't lay up on 13. He really shows you how to play golf.

And so when you keep selecting the right target and you keep trying to hit the right shots and there's less clutter mentally, it's a wonderful watch. It's just that he doesn't fist pump like Tiger Woods.

So I believe he suffocates the field. If you really get into the nuances of the game, it's wonderful. It really is wonderful. There's a touch of Faldo and Curtis Strange in there without – Curtis was a lot more fiery. And now he can putt as well. He has the same intellect as a Nicklaus and a Woods when he's in front. It’s just a wonderful blend, but he doesn't do it the way that I guess some people want him to, which is fist pumping and big cheesy smiles. And I love the way Tiger Woods played. Because Tiger brought so much joy to the game. We can't replicate that. I remember always saying we will never replace Tiger Woods with one person. It might take three or four. But now we've got a totally different type. We've got a more Nicklaus-type persona and a more Nicklaus sort of cerebral-type approach to the game.

So to get back to your question, I don't know because I don’t know how the game is going to go forward. I really don't. But given these set of parameters, he's not going to beat himself. That's for sure.

So if somebody said they think he's going to win double digit majors, you don't think that viewpoint is naive?

But we've said that about a lot of guys. When Rory got to four very quickly, it looked like a shoe in, right? I thought Tiger was going to break 18. I'm a tennis fan as well and I never thought Sampras’ record would be beaten and it’s been beaten by three guys. 

I like to remain in the present and call the shot in front. I want to enjoy the ride, but could I see Scottie make it to 10 majors? Yeah. I’ll put it this way. I wouldn’t go, “Wow, I never saw that happening.”

He’ll give it a really good shake because he knows how to play Augusta and that's one place you go every year. I guess if he has an Achilles' Heel, you'd say the Open Championship. I'm curious how he's going to figure that out, but it took Jack Nicklaus a few to figure that out, as well. He didn't win until ‘66 after four or five goes. Because of all the things that you can utilize today – technology and data – Scottie has some players he can look to see what they did better than everyone else. 

But we also don't know the next generation that's turning pro. All we do know is that right now for the time, for the place, the courses they are playing, there's no question he's the best.