Oakmont, Pennsylvania
CNN
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Scottie Scheffler has been bending courses to his will in 2025. The No. 1 golfer in the world looked unstoppable only two weeks ago at the Memorial Tournament that he won by four strokes at the Muirfield Village Golf Club in Ohio.

But the course at Oakmont Country Club outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, isn’t just any course. Oakmont is diabolical.

The rough is deep enough that it covers your shoes. It’s thick enough that the PGA officials tasked with finding wayward shots look like someone trying to find a contact lens in a crowded room. The fairways are pencil-thin and, when you’re lucky enough to find one, they slope toward bunkers that drop straight into the earth. Those bunkers are so deep that they appear to swallow players whole, and they guard the greens at Oakmont like the implacable Royal Guard at Buckingham Palace.

When all those obstacles are finally vanquished, players might hope to find some respite on the greens. Instead, they are essentially putting on sheets of glass that have enough bumps, slopes, twists and turns that all they’re missing is a windmill or an open-mouthed clown.

Scheffler felt the fury of Oakmont on the monster 618-yard, par-5 12th hole when he had a chance to chip out of the rough near the green and set up a rare birdie opportunity. Unfortunately for the defending PGA Championship winner, this course has a way of making even the best player in the world look like a high handicap weekend warrior: he scalded his flop shot and the lightning-fast greens gave him no quarter as the ball rocketed across the green and into the thick rough on the opposite side.

Such is Scheffler’s ability that he managed to get up and down for par. But the frustration was beginning to show. A bogey on 13 made his jaw drop. An approach shot on 14 that spun away from the hole left him slamming his club into the fairway, yelling at himself. Another bogey came on 15 after he missed a six-footer on another wicked green.

“The golf course is just challenging,” he said afterward.

“The greens just got challenging out there late in the day,” he added. “There’s so much speed and so much pitch and then with the amount of guys going through on these greens, they can get a little bit bumpy. But you know that’s going to be part of the challenge going in. You’ve got to do your best to stay under the hole and stay patient.”

It was a brutal day for Scheffler and so many others on the course. And the worst news for the 156 players in the field? It might get even tougher.

“It just puts so much pressure on every single part of your game constantly, whether it’s off the tee, whether it’s putting green, whether it’s around the greens or it’s the iron shots into the green,” said Thomas Detry, who ended the day with a 1-under 69. “Luckily, the wind wasn’t too much up today, but it could be a bloodbath out here if it suddenly starts to blow.”

Friday’s forecast for Oakmont, Pennsylvania, includes the possibility of rain showers and thunderstorms. Saturday and Sunday’s forecast looks much the same. If the rough gets wet and the wind picks up, then this monster of a course might be eating the field for dinner.

@cnn

The 125th US Open is being played for a record tenth time at Oakmont Country Club in Pennsylvania where CNN’s Patrick Snell is in the rough to show you just why the famed country club has long been considered one of the toughest courses in the country. #cnn #news #sports #golf #usga #usopen #oakmont #golfing #oakmontcountryclub

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Oakmont giveth and Oakmont taketh (much more) away

The course gave up a couple of incredible shots – Shane Lowry’s eagle on the No. 3 and Patrick Reed’s 286-yard albatross on No. 4 to name the most notable – but for every highlight reel moment, there were innumerable stolen strokes that might prove costly on Sunday.

There was Rory McIlroy chunking it only a few yards out of catastrophic conditions on two straight shots on No. 4. There was Viktor Hovland hacking his second shot only 97 yards as the rough reached up and grabbed his clubhead on No. 15, leading to a killer bogey. There was Bryson DeChambeau’s approach shot on No. 12 that bounced three times and then rolled all the way off the back of the green.

And, as the golden hour glow settled in on the course, there was Tony Finau finding a greenside sprinkler head that sent his ball flying into the grandstands and only just missing a spectator who never saw it coming.

There were many more. DeChambeau said the course is not giving an inch.

“The rough is incredibly penalizing. Even for a guy like me, I can’t get out of it some of the times, depending on the lie. It was tough. It was a brutal test of golf,” he said.

Robert MacIntyre, who shot an even-par 70 on Thursday, said the course is in his head even if he was very pleased with his round.

“That’s up there, up there in the top 10 of any rounds that I’ve played. It is just so hard – honestly, every shot you’re on a knife edge,” he said. “If you miss it – even if you miss the green, you miss it by too much, you then try to play an eight-yard pitch over the rough onto a green that’s brick-hard running away from you.”

Playing Oakmont well doesn’t exactly mean that one felt confident going into the day.

For JJ Spaun, who lead the tournament after the opening round, the best move was to just lean into the anxiety.

“I was definitely kind of nervous because I didn’t – all you’ve been hearing is how hard this place is, and it’s hard to not hear the noise and see what’s on social media and Twitter and all this stuff,” he said. “You’re just kind of only hearing about how hard this course is.”

“I was actually pretty nervous. But I actually tried to harness that, the nerves, the anxiety, because it kind of heightens my focus, makes me swing better, I guess. I don’t know, I kind of get more in the zone, whereas if I don’t have any worry or if I’m not in it mentally, it’s kind of just a lazy round or whatever out there.”

Kim Si-woo, who ended the day in third after shooting a 2-under par 68, admitted that he didn’t really know what he was doing out there.

“Honestly, I don’t even know what I’m doing on the course,” he told reporters. “Kind of hitting good but feel like this course is too hard for me. So, kind of like no expectation, but I played great today.”

Even an experienced major champion like Spain’s Jon Rahm, who finished the day tied for sixth after shooting a 1-under 69, felt like he had an accomplishment to celebrate by staying under par.

“I’m extremely happy. I played some incredible golf to shoot 1-under, which we don’t usually say, right?” he said.

Second round action gets underway early Friday morning as the field is set to be narrowed to the top 60 players who make the cut.

CNN
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And just like that, we have a series.

The Edmonton Oilers completed a comeback for the ages to down the Florida Panthers 5-4 in overtime to knot the Stanley Cup Final up at 2-2.

After erasing a three-goal deficit, the Oilers found themselves leading 4-3 in the closing seconds of the third period when Florida’s Sam Reinhart found the back of the net to tie it up with 19.5 seconds remaining for the defending Cup champion Panthers.

However, it was a familiar face who took matters into his own hands in the overtime period.

Leon Draisaitl, who was the OT hero in Game 1, played the role again, scoring just over 11 minutes into the extra period to send the Oilers back to Canada feeling some excitement.

The 29-year-old German has had a knack for scoring in overtime especially in these playoffs with Game 4’s goal being his fourth – the most OT goals in a single postseason in NHL history.

As a result of the win, Edmonton became the first team in 106 years to comeback from a three-goal deficit and win on the road in the Stanley Cup Final series. The last time the feat happened was in 1919 when the Montreal Canadiens beat the Seattle Metropolitans. It is also only the sixth time in NHL history that a team has come back from a three-goal deficit to win a Stanley Cup Final game.

As Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce looked on at Amerant Bank Arena, the path to a victory for Edmonton did not appear to be reachable.

Thursday’s game appeared to be a repeat of the beatdown the Panthers put on the Oilers in Game 3 early on.

Florida quickly jumped out to a 3-0 lead after two power play goals from Matthew Tkachuk and an Anton Lundell goal 41 seconds before the first intermission.

Edmonton replaced goaltender Stuart Skinner with backup Calvin Pickard to start the second period, rejuvenating the struggling Oilers squad.

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Darnell Nurse and Vasily Podkolzin all scored for Edmonton to knot things up at 3-3 after two periods as the home crowd was left stunned.

Oilers defenseman Jake Walman gave Edmonton a 4-3 lead with 6:24 left, but just as Panthers fans started to head for the exits, Reinhart injected life into the south Florida crowd, though it was not to be in the end.

Draisaitl commended his teammates for their no-quit attitude despite the holes the team digs for itself sometimes.

“We’d like to put ourselves into better situations for ourselves so we don’t have to constantly fight back and hang in there and scratch and claw our way back,” Draisaitl told the TNT Sports broadcast. “But it is a great characteristic of our team. We continue to chip away at it. And today, obviously, not a great start but then we started playing.”

Draisaitl downplayed the overtime goal record, saying that it was “good” but the team “had a lot more work ahead.”

“I’ll take it but (there’s a) bigger picture,” Draisaitl added.

The series will shift back to Western Canada at the Rogers Place in Edmonton for Game 5 on Saturday.

CNN
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Despite having a mountain of expectation on his shoulders, it appears that Travis Hunter remains unfazed.

Hunter was the No. 2 overall pick by the Jacksonville Jaguars in the 2025 NFL Draft after a Heisman Trophy-winning season with the Colorado Buffaloes.

The 22-year-old is a unique prospect given his two-way potential at college – he played on offense as a wide receiver and on defense as a cornerback – and his desire to feature on both sides of the ball in the NFL.

But that pressure to excel at two different positions – which very few players have ever tried, let alone succeeded at, on the pro level – doesn’t appear to be getting to Hunter.

At his first few days of minicamp with the Jags, Hunter has been seen dancing before plays and laughing with his new teammates as he gets his first taste of offensive and defensive NFL football.

Speaking to the media, the Florida native said he’s had no issues letting his personality shine despite the step up.

“It’s been very easy for me. The guys come in and I bring the juice every day,” Hunter told reporters. “I always got a smile on my face and make everyone laugh when I get the chance.

“So we’re just having fun and just being kids out here – just loving it and living our dream.”

Whether Hunter’s two-way game will be able to translate from the college level to the NFL is yet to be seen.

From his perspective, Hunter says there’s “not really any difference” between playing on both sides of the ball on either level, adding that he needs to “stay in the playbook and apply it to the field” if he wants to succeed.

According to Jags defensive coordinator Anthony Campanile, Hunter has all the tools to be a two-way star in the NFL.

“He just has a wealth of talent. He’s a super intelligent guy, which makes it really fun. He’s really quick on the uptake, so he’s a fun guy to coach, to be around,” Campanile told reporters on Wednesday.

“I know his position coaches love coaching him and it’s pretty impressive to watch a guy do that. I think it’s really cool. It’s been really fun, but I also think the coaches … have done a great job of just getting him up to speed on everything, and he’s done a great job responding to it.”

Jacksonville fans got to see their players up close and personal on Wednesday as the team held a two-hour session open to the public, a rare occurrence for an NFL offseason practice.

The stands at Miller Electric Center were full as spectators got their first opportunity to see the team under first-year head coach Liam Coen as well as the crop of new players, with Hunter being the headline act.

Hunter called the open session a “great experience” while Coen said the players increased their effort levels because of the fans’ support.

“(We) really felt them, the players fed off that, especially some of the younger guys feeling some of that support being rookies and never having a practice quite like this with fans here,” Coen told reporters on Wednesday. “So really appreciate everybody coming out this week, today especially.”