The summer season is here and we happen to be just 12 days away from first-round play in the United States Open Golf Championship. The National Open is the second of golf’s four major tournaments and is arguably the toughest one to win with its history of lightning-fast greens, narrow fairways and punitive rough.
First contested in 1895, this will be the 115th edition of our national championship. For a major golfing event that has been around as long as the U.S. Open, you can expect the event to be all about history and tradition. Part of that history and tradition is the fact that the National Open is usually contested on classic courses, many of them designed by the gods of golf architecture more than 100 years ago during the golden age of course design.
For instance, last year’s Open, won by German Martin Kaymer in runaway fashion, was played at Pinehurst, a turn-of-the-century Donald Ross work of pure golfing art. Next year’s U.S. Open will be held at Oakmont in the Pittsburgh area, a venue that has hosted the championship eight times previously. Its first Open was won by Tommy Armour in 1927. In 2018 the Open returns to Shinnecock Hills on Long Island. It initially held the second ever National Open in 1896. Pebble Beach is the site of the 2019 Open and that year will represent the 100th birthday of America’s most classic ocean-side course. In 2020 the United States Open will return to Winged Foot in New York for the sixth time. Bobby Jones won the U.S. Open there in 1929.
Yet this year we need to throw all that history and tradition out the window as the United States Golf Association brings its biggest tournament to the Pacific Northwest for the first time to a relatively new course located in a very different sort of setting.
Chambers Bay Golf Club first opened for business in the summer of 2007, a mere eight years ago. Owned by Pierce County, the course is open for public play. Located on the far southwestern corner of Pudget Sound, it is geographically closer to Tacoma than it is to Seattle. Yet say what you will about metropolitan areas, the golf course at Chambers Bay is in a remote, windswept corner of the sound.
Located on an abandoned sand and gravel quarry, a total of 57 golf architectural firms submitted bids to build the course at Chambers Bay. The winning bid went to Robert Trent Jones II and one of his promotional sells was to pass out bag tags to Pierce County officials that read, “Chambers Bay-2030 U.S. Open.” While the original bid process called for a 27-hole complex, Jones contended that he and his firm could build a world-class 18-hole championship golf course that would attract major golf tourneys. The other radical part of the Jones proposal called for no motorized golf carts on the Chambers Bay site. While Pierce County would take a bit of a financial hit from lost cart revenue, it would be a walking-only course according to the Jones plan. No motorized carts would not only enhance the integrity of the design, but it also would allow for the planting of native grasses that could or would be trampled down by constant cart traffic.
The timing was good for Jones in that the 2002 U.S. Open had already been contested at Bethpage on Long Island, a public course. Future public course Opens were scheduled for Torrey Pines in San Diego in 2008 and once again at Bethpage in 2009. The prevailing thought among State of Washington politicians and golf officials was that maybe a classic Jones design could draw a U.S. Open by 2030.
The Robert Trent Jones II design for Chambers Bay was considered a minimalist masterpiece when it first opened in the summer of 2007. Word immediately got out about the dramatic new links-style course on Pudget Sound. By mid-2008 in a highly unprecedented move, the USGA not only awarded the United States Amateur to Chambers Bay for 2010, but it shocked the golf world by choosing the same novice course to host its major event for 2015.
Way back in 1970, the USGA hosted the U.S. Open at Hazeltine in Minnesota. At that time, Hazeltine was just eight years old, and, in a unique coincidence, it was designed by the famous father of Jones II, Robert Trent Jones Sr. Hazeltine was universally detested by the pros. Dave Hill, the Open runner-up to Tony Jacklin that year, said the only things the course needed to have done to improve it was to add a few head of cattle and 40 acres of corn. Only time will tell whether the current generation of professionals will have an appreciation for Chambers Bay although author Blaine Newnham wrote a book about the course entitled, “America’s St. Andrews.”
Because of its newness, this will be new territory for the playing of the National Open. The course setup might be a whole lot closer to British Open golf for those top players in the field. Two of the holes, the first and the 18th, can change pars on a daily basis. The first hole can be played as a 496-yard par-4 or a 598-yard par-5 while the 18th stretches out to a 604-yard par-5 but can be shortened and played as a 525-yard par-4. Did I actually just say they’re shortening a hole by making it a 525-yard par-4?
Anyway, we’re in for a dramatic four days of United States Open golf alongside Pudget Sound and within view of nearby Mount Whitney. Top local amateur Chip Bowlin, sometimes better known as the father-in-law of local professional Jonathan Carlson, has played Chambers Bay and considers it one of the toughest golf courses he has ever played. If the wind blows hard off the sound, then expect scores to soar and nerves to be frayed.
After all, someone will have to win the U.S. Open. Or perhaps 155 golfers will lose the National Open and there will be just one man left standing. Best as I can tell, with absolutely no history and tradition of any sort to rely upon with the playing of Chambers Bay, the eventual winner of the 115th annual United States Open will most probably be that golfer who is mentally tougher than the rest.
