In 2008, just six months after it opened to the public, Chambers Bay, a former sand and gravel pit, was awarded the 2015 United States Open Championship. Designed by noted architect Robert Trent Jones and situated on the Puget Sound outside Tacoma, Washington, the golf course was not only new but has hosted only one tournament of significance, the 2010 US Amateur won by Peter Uihlein. For the conservative and staid United States Golf Association, this was uncharted territory.
There is little doubt that the Pacific Northwest deserved our National championship. Of the 114 previous Opens, all but 17 have been contested east of the Rocky Mountains, and of those, three were in Denver, two in Dallas and the rest in California, primarily at Pebble Beach and San Francisco’s Olympic Club. The USGA is nothing if not tradition. The Northwest deserved a shot and it finally got it. But was it the right choice.
Golf purists have always identified our national championship with narrow fairways, fast greens, and high rough with under par scores non-existent. As Sandy Tatum, former Executive Director of the USGA famously proclaimed: “We are not trying to embarrass the best players in the world; we are trying to identify them.” It has been said a player does not win the Open, the Open wins them.
Keep that in mind as you watch the 2015 US Open Championship unfold. There is no rough, no trees and no water hazards. The entire 930 acres that comprise the property are sand dunes where little else grows including grass. There’s just one tree on the entire golf course. Because of these conditions, the architects planted the golf course with a drought resistant grass that can withstand long periods of no moisture and little maintenance. Tees, fairways and greens are all fine fescue, which is tan at its best and brown when it’s not. The rest of the course is sand and there is a lot of it. In the history of USGA Championships they have never conducted a tournament on this type of grass until now. It’s an experiment that is wrought with danger.
This will not be your Augusta green grass, tree lined and perfectly manicured golf tournament.
Players are already calling this year’s US Open at Chambers Bay, America’s British Open because it resembles the links style courses the Open Championship is played on. But there is a difference. I like links style golf courses and have been privileged to play some of the best in the British Isles. To play those types of golf courses you must play the golf ball low to the ground and bounce the ball into the greens whereas with parkland courses you can aim at the fairways and greens and have the ball stop. That’s not the case here. Playing links style golf under tournament conditions you will always get the odd, quirky little bounces and funny caroms off of mounds and bunkers, but you know pretty much where the ball is going to go if you hit it less than perfect. That’s not the case at Chambers Bay for this simple notion. The golf course is not flat like a typical links course. Chambers Bay has some of the most severe elevation changes in US Open history. Playing uphill, golfers must hit the ball above the hole or it will roll back to their feet. Downhill the ball will run forever. Playing this course will become a guessing game for the contestants and if they guess wrong the penalties could be severe. Chambers Bay will play at 7700 yards and will have four of the longest par-four’s in Championship history but those numbers are meaningless if the golf hole plays downwind and downhill. Coming off the Puget Sound the wind will blow and it could blow hard, especially in the afternoon. When that happens the scores will mount, players will grumble and spectators will witness some big numbers. Forget creativity and imaginative shot making, think survival for the best players in the world.
The player that wins the 2015th US Open will have survived four brutal days of changing conditions, unfathomable pressure, good breaks and the will to win. I have no doubt the USGA will crown a worthy champion at the conclusion of this year’s tournament but I have a feeling it won’t be the golf course.
The Pacific Northwest deserved an Open Championship on one of its many great courses, unfortunately they didn’t get it. I hope I’m wrong but only history will tell.
At the Open, I’m Jeff Waters