So How Will Chambers Bay Saga Play Out - And Other Intriguing Questions

By: Blaine Newnham


Not since Jack Fleck beat Ben Hogan in a playoff 60 years ago, has there been such an audacious interloper at our national golf championship.

Who's that?

Chambers Bay, that's who.

Who's heard of it, and, better yet, who knows anything about it?

The United States Golf Association made the ultimate risk-reward ploy in picking the juvenile muni to host the 2015 Open just eight months after its doors opened in 2007.

Much has been written about the firsts at Chambers Bay: the first Open contested in the Pacific Northwest; the first played on fescue grasses; the first with huge elevation gains and losses; the first with British Open-like bleacher seating; the first Open played on any course built in the past 50 years.

And there's more. Chambers Bay is the first Open with holes changing pars, a four one day and a five the next. It is the first where tees are "trails" and not boxes, and the first telecast to the world on upstart Fox Sports. "There's never been anything like this for a U.S. Open," said Mike Davis, who worked his way through the USGA hierarchy while pushing Chambers Bay.

Now, Davis is executive director of the USGA, perhaps the most important man in golf, and Chambers Bay stands awaiting an assault of criticisms and compliments. What if the touring pros don't like a course which one of them (Ian Poulter) suggested was a "farce?" What if the greens aren't championship caliber, what if, what if?

It is clear the USGA wants to return to Chambers Bay, the course that was in all truth built to its specifications. There's so much to like. Certainly the response of the ticket-buying public, as well as the rush to volunteer, was overwhelming. Pacific Northwest golf fans have done their part.

So has Pierce County, the owner of Chambers Bay, which put forth a plan to bring the course into championship condition even if it cost substantial revenue to do so. Pierce County was aware that a flop at the Open before the golf community could turn the place into an economic nightmare.

Moreover, the USGA likes playing the Open in the West as it offers more primetime television viewing for the populace on the East Coast.

Pundits wonder about the Northwest weather. The reality is that even if the Open were played in a stretch of rainy, cloudy weather, there would not be the disruptions caused by thunderstorms on the East Coast or Midwest when thousands of spectators are ushered on and off the course and play delayed for hours.

In fact, USGA officials hope for at least one stormy day to find out how really tough the Robert Trent Jones, Jr.-designed track can be.

They've gotten the lead-up of dry days they wanted to make the course play as firm and fast as any of the famed British and Irish seaside layouts used as Open Championship venues.

This won't be golf as usual. A year ago, on the same weekend as the Open, the Washington State Amateur was played at Chambers Bay. The winner, Cameron Peck, had one stretch of seven holes in which he went 8-under par.

In the final round, with the winds whipping out of the southwest, he shot 78 but still won the tournament by five strokes, the only player in the field who broke par. The players will all have their moments, good and bad, and it will simply come down to how well they handle both.

Alan Shipnuck, the Sports Illustrated golf writer, said recently that it shouldn't be the touring pros who pronounce whether the course is worthy or not. He contended that pros want to do two things: make birdies and make money. They want no surprises; Chambers Bay will be loaded with them. Links golf is supposed to be a random event; Chambers Bay will be a fine example.

Clearly, the USGA sees itself as being different than the PGA Tour. It isn't trying to mollify the players; it is trying to protect its hallowed game and advance it. The television public will see a golf course that takes less water and fertilizer, one that takes pride in being brown around the edges.

Davis recognizes there will be "chirping" from the players about the course and its setup, but added that he wondered if he'd done his job if there was no chirping. He will, indeed, walk a fine line in trying to make the course as challenging and interesting as it can be, without making it a Wild West Show.

He cited the old story about Jack Nicklaus listening to comments in the locker room and eliminating from contention those players complaining about the course.

Davis said players would have to study and understand the course to do well and wouldn't get enough of an intro from a couple practice rounds to do the trick. Top-ranked Rory McIlroy, perturbed by the premise that he couldn't do well unless he studied the Chambers Bay layout, asked shamelessly "What's Mike Davis's handicap?"

With the demands and wealth of the PGA Tour, McIlroy makes a good point that players simply can't afford the time to do a thorough scouting of the course. Player approval and performance will be one judge of Chambers Bay as a venue for one of golf's majors, another will be how it handles 40,000 spectators a day, most of which will have to buy into the bleacher-view concept the USGA is borrowing from the U.K.'s Open Championship.

What would vindicate Chambers Bay and the manner in which the USGA chooses to set it up would be for the Open to follow in the footsteps of the 2010 U.S. Amateur, held at the same course when the world's top-ranked amateur finished first, beating the player ranked No. 2. The USGA wants, as they've always said, to identify the best players, not abuse them.

Without wind or rain, the par-70 layout will be defended by its tumbling greens and the opportunity to make it longer - nearly 7,900 yards if need be. During a round before the Open, Greg Norman, the new chief analyst for Fox Sports, told Davis how much he liked the course and apparently urged him to move the tees all the way back at least one day.

"Local" Favorites

While it's evident golf fans in the Northwest will enthusiastically embrace their very first U.S. Open as evidenced by the hot ticket sales, might there emerge a local - if adopted - favorite among the massive crowds?

Michael Greller, on the bag for Masters' champion Jordan Spieth, thinks so. "I honestly believe he'll be a crowd favorite, almost like a local," said Greller. "And Jordan thrives on boisterous, loud crowds. He feels their energy."

Ryan Moore and Michael Putnam are the true locals most likely to contend, although former University of Washington golfers Cheng-Tsung Pan, Richard Lee and Troy Kelly will try to continue their miraculous run through the U.S. Open's qualifying hoops, culminating at Tumble Creek in Eastern Washington where the trio took the three spots available.

Still, there are many reasons to take Spieth on as one of their own, especially after his gracious and glorious dismantling of the field at Augusta National Golf Club.

Like the Northwest, he's young and bold, but also tempered and, obviously, caring. In 2013, following his first PGA Tour win, he withdrew from the guaranteed-money WGC-Bridgestone Invitational so he could be at his caddie's wedding.

They gathered the day before the wedding to play Chambers Bay, five foursomes of relatives and friends, Spieth in the first group with Greller, his brother and best man Tom Greller, and Greller's uncle Jake.

Not only did Spieth forgo the Bridgestone event, but he had to return to Chambers Bay where, in qualifying for the 2010 U.S. Amateur, he shot 83 during stroke-play qualifying and didn't qualify for match play.

"That course on that day," said Greller, "was borderline unfair. I think everyone realized that."

Spieth caught the course at the worst time, late in the afternoon when USGA officials admitted that in turning off the water two weeks earlier they had made it too firm and fast. But that was August. And Spieth was 17 years old and yet to have Greller, who had been a grade-school math teacher in nearby Gig Harbor, Wash., on the bag.

Greller's story is a good one: Sixth-grade math teacher who grew up in the Midwest but settled on the Kitsap Peninsula, a scratch player who volunteered to caddie for free at the 2006 U.S. Public Links at Gold Mountain in Bremerton, Wash., hooked up with Spieth at the 2011 U.S. Junior at Gold Mountain and what was whimsical and part-time carried him to unfathomed monetary and professional riches.

The third appearance at Chambers Bay may indeed be a charm for Spieth, ranked the No. 2 player in the world. "I know he will embrace Chambers Bay," said Greller, "if only because he knows how much it has meant to me."

But beyond that, Greller said Spieth loves the challenges of links golf and, as a native of Texas, has played his whole life in the wind. In 2011, Spieth and Greller won the first time they were paired as Spieth became only the second multiple winner in the Junior, joining Tiger Woods.

Since then they have become almost brothers in the progress of Spieth from teenager to major champion. In fact, the first person Spieth thanked following the win at Augusta was Greller. "You kept me strong," he said. "You were the reason this dream came true."

Does Greller, who's played 50 rounds at Chambers Bay and caddied countless more, give Spieth a home-field advantage? Greller doesn't doubt there will be many experienced caddies with well-developed game plans for Chambers.

But none are more familiar with or dedicated to the course than Greller, who will spend two weeks before the Open playing and studying its complexities.

"Jordan loves the ground game, has great imagination and golf IQ," said Greller of his boss's chances at Chambers Bay.

Not to mention a whole lot of local support. If nothing else, he is an American and Europeans have won four of the past five Opens.

Blaine Newnham has covered golf for 50 years. He still cherishes the memory of following Ben Hogan for 18 holes during the first round of the 1966 U.S. Open at the Olympic Club in San Francisco. He worked then for the Oakland Tribune, where he covered the Oakland Raiders during the first three seasons of head coach John Madden. Blaine moved on to Eugene, Ore., in 1971 as sports editor and columnist, covering the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. He covered five Olympics all together - Mexico City, Munich, Los Angeles, Seoul, and Athens - before retiring in early 2005 from the Seattle Times. He covered his first Masters in 1987 when Larry Mize chipped in to beat Greg Norman, and his last in 2005 when Tiger Woods chip dramatically teetered on the lip at No. 16 and rolled in. He saw Woods' four straight major wins in 2000 and 2001, and Payne Stewart's par putt to win the U.S. Open at Pinehurst. In 2005, Blaine received the Northwest Golf Media Association's Distinguished Service Award. He is the author of the book, "America's St. Andrews," which tells the colorful back-story of how Chambers Bay was selected as the site of the 2015 U.S. Open. The book was released October 1, 2014, and may be ordered at www.AmericasStAndrews.com. He and his wife, Joanna, live in Indianola, Wash., where the Dungeness crabs outnumber the people.