UNIVERSITY PLACE — When it comes to the U.S. Open, there’s a joke among United States Golf Association officials that goes something like this.
If no players are complaining about the course, they’ve done something wrong.
And by that measure, the 2015 U.S. Open is already a success seven weeks before the 115th playing of one of golf’s most prestigious tournaments. The world’s best golfers won’t descend on Chambers Bay until mid June, but already this unique U.S. Open site is getting into the heads of some golfers well before the tournament comes to the Pacific Northwest for the first time.
On Wednesday, Ian Poulter tweeted that the word from tour pros that had played Chambers Bay was that the course was “a complete farce.” And according to freelance golf journalist Stephanie Wei, one unnamed pro who recently played Chambers Bay responded to a question about the course by singing “M-I-C-K-E-Y-M-O-U-S-E.”
Ignoring for a second that Poulter is also the same guy who last year made waves when he complained on Twitter that British Airways bumped his nanny from her business class seat (the horror!), the uniqueness of Chambers Bay will indeed be met with mixed reviews by pros when they arrive here next month.
And that’s just fine with the USGA, and really, should be for anyone else watching the tournament. Different is OK, even when it comes to a tournament steeped in tradition. Different will actually be pretty darn fun to watch.
No, this won’t look like a traditional U.S. Open, and it won’t even look like a British Open despite Chambers Bay being a links course, not with the huge elevation changes. What the 2015 U.S. Open will be is a fascinating test of golf that will reward the golfers who are on their game — and yes, who embrace an unusual challenge — while punishing those who are struggling or who arrive in University Place unprepared for this course.
And that’s exactly what a U.S. Open course should do.
“This is a one of a kind site for us at a U.S. Open, and there will be some players who love the ground game, who love the imagination, who will embrace it,” USGA executive director Mike Davis said Monday at the U.S. Open Media day held at the course. “Then there are other players who just want predictability. They want something right in front of them, they don’t want to have to guess what’s going to happen when the ball lands, so again, it’s just a different mindset…
“It would not be a U.S. Open if we didn’t get some chirping; it’s just part of it and we accept that. In fact, we joke internally sometimes that if nobody is complaining, we’ve done something wrong.”
Nothing about this U.S. Open or the course is normal, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be a huge success both for the Puget Sound region and for the game. The last two sites to host this tournament, Merion Golf Club and Pinehurst, are both more than a century old, as is next year’s U.S. Open site, Oakmont Country Club. Chambers Bay, meanwhile, opened in 2007. When Davis and other USGA officials began discussing the idea of hosting their championship at a new golf course on the shores of Puget Sound, it wasn’t a golf course. It was sand and rocks, the remnants of an old gravel mine.
But where Robert Trent Jones Jr. and former employee Jay Blasi would eventually design one of the country’s best courses, the potential was obvious long before the first shot was played at Chambers Bay. For starters, the course sits on a huge piece of property, a must for a major tournament because of the infrastructure needed, and the proximity to water made for a stunning setting. Throw in the fact that the course was going to be publicly owned, and that it was built on sand — the preferred starting point for building a golf course — and the USGA was intrigued from Day 1.
“Taking a look over this fence at the property, and at that point it was just piles of sand, remnants of this old gravel and sand mine,” Davis said. “To think about where it is today, it’s fun to look back at how it happened so quickly.
“This is a bold site. This is a big site. There’s a lot of scale to this site. … We don’t have anything that we play the U.S. Open on that’s remotely similar to this.”
In an Open that will look nothing like its predecessors, players will occasionally tee off from uneven lies; the first and 18th holes will alternate between Par 4s and Par 5s; and the course, from its width to its lack of trees to its huge hills will be unlike any previous U.S. Open Course.
New will not only irk some players, it will challenge them in a way that a U.S. Open at Pinehurst or Pebble Beach would not.
“I would contend that there is no way — no way — a player will have success here at Chambers Bay unless he really studies the golf course and learns it,” Davis said. “The idea of coming in and playing two practice rounds and having caddie walk it and using your yardage book — that person’s done, will not win the U.S. Open.”
Chambers Bay is neither a Mickey Mouse golf course nor a farce. What it is, however, is a completely different site for a U.S. Open, one that some players will embrace and others will deride, and it’s a course that will bring one of golf’s biggest tournaments, and the estimated $140 million economic impact that comes with it to a region starved for big-time golf.
And the whole thing, from the spectacular views to the creative shot-making to the unfortunate bounces should make for a fantastic, albeit unique, U.S. Open. Some players are complaining already, which means the first U.S. Open in the Pacific Northwest should be a fun and memorable one.
Herald Columnist John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com
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