It wasn't the stark, treeless look at Oakmont Country Club that surprised Tiger Woods. It wasn't the speed of the greens, which, by Oakmont's lofty standards, aren't very fast right now. It wasn't even the number of blind shots he faced the past two days.

What Woods was having a difficult time comprehending was how firm and fast the course will play when the 107th U.S. Open comes to Oakmont in six weeks. It certainly wasn't playing that way Sunday, when he played 36 holes in his first visit to Oakmont.

And it wasn't playing that way again yesterday when he played another 18 holes as part of a corporate outing in which he surprised 80 American Express cardholders who merely thought they were playing golf and having lunch at the course that will have hosted more U.S. Open championships (eight) than any other course.

"They keep telling me the fairways are really fast here, that they roll a lot, but [Sunday] my ball backed up on two drives, which they said is unusual," Woods said yesterday in a one-on-one interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "A lot of guys were saying, 'Yeah some of the kids [in the 2003 U.S. Amateur] were hitting 3-wood and 9- or 8-iron into No. 9, and I couldn't grasp that concept because [Sunday] I hit driver, 3-iron and driver, 4-iron into the wind and the ball's not running. Guys were hitting 2-iron, sand wedge or pitching wedge to No. 1. Yesterday, I hit driver and 5-iron. It's two different deals."

Woods said he used the two days at Oakmont to learn the holes, figure out where to hit the ball, develop target lines and even determine what club to hit off the tee. But, because the conditions are so different from how Oakmont will play during the U.S. Open, Woods said it is difficult to determine a game plan and if he will put his driver away for the tournament, which is June 14-17.

Yesterday, using a square-headed Nike driver for the first time and playing in gusty conditions, Woods hit driver on seven holes -- Nos. 1, 4, 7, 9, 12, 17 and 18. During the U.S. Open, Woods may not use his driver half that much, opting to use a 3- or 4-iron on many of the holes. When he played 36 holes on Sunday with his teacher, Hank Haney, Woods used a 5-wood to hit the "stinger" shot he has popularized the past three years.

"I don't know [how much I'll use it] because I hit driver quite a bit because the ball wasn't running," Woods said, sitting in Oakmont's indoor practice facility before his afternoon round in which he was followed by more than 100 people. "I hit driver, 3-iron, 9-iron on No. 12 [a 667-yard par 5], but I don't know if I will hit driver because there are two different tee locations and I haven't seen how the fairways are running."

Woods said he couldn't believe Trip Kuehne, whom he beat to win the 1994 U.S. Amateur championship, hit driver, 6-iron into No. 12 when it played 612 yards for the 2003 U.S. Amateur. Kuehne's brother, Hank, who plays on the PGA Tour, once drove his ball through the green at No. 1, which is 485 yards downhill.

"Today was a little bit drier, but still nothing like they were at the Amateur and the way they were in the U.S. Open [in 1994], with that much roll," said Woods, who played the front nine twice Sunday afternoon with Oakmont professional Bob Ford.

In all likelihood, Woods will find an entirely different golf course when he returns to Oakmont, perhaps even a week before the U.S. Open. But it won't just be the fairways.

The greens were running at 10.5 on the Stimpmeter the past two days, not nearly as fast as they will be for the Open. And they were not as smooth as usual because they had recently been aerified.

"They said they're extremely smooth," Woods said. "Granted, they do have a lot of movement to them, a lot of pitch to them, but people seem to hole a lot of putts here. After playing it, it was hard for me to see that because I was seeing balls bouncing all over the place."

Woods did not play in the 1994 U.S. Open at Oakmont because he failed to qualify as amateur. And he had never even been to the course until Sunday -- a strange fact given Woods' love for the game and the way he embraces the history and tradition of the sport. Nonetheless, Woods said he really enjoyed his first visit to Oakmont, though he admitted it was different than what he envisioned.

"I just remember seeing all these trees everywhere and you get down here and all of sudden there's nothing there," he said. "It's very open. You can see all the holes from the clubhouse. It's very different than what I envisioned."