Did the Chambers Bay Experiment Work?

By: Tony Dear


Their initial reaction to the question is to laugh disdainfully, the implication being they've been expecting it, and know that whatever they say there will be an army of trolls who vehemently disagree. In some cases, they might not even have decided what they really believe themselves.

I ask the question "Did the Chambers Bay experiment work?" to a handful of the most respected golf journalists in the media center shortly before Jordan Spieth wins his second straight major. To a man, they give the question at least a little thought before offering their opinions.

Actually, Andy North, a two-time U.S. Open champion and now ESPN analyst, is the only one who prefers not to get involved. "I'm not going anywhere near that," he says, and I move on to the next man, although I know precisely what North thinks of the course having heard him on Scott Van Pelt and Ryen Russillo's podcast three days earlier. "We shouldn't be playing this championship on this type of golf course," he said. "There's just too much bounce.

"It's fine for you and your buddies. If you came out here for three days with a case of beer in the back of the cart (no carts here Andy, it's walking-only), it would be an absolute gas. But it's different if it's for the national championship. The U.S. Open should be played at the Oakmonts, Oakland Hills and Oak Hills of the world, and other courses that are tree-lined and lush with heavy rough. That's what the U.S. Open should be in my opinion."

No one else that responds has ever won the U.S. Open, or indeed any major championship, which could explain why they feel so differently.

Alan Shipnuck of Sports Illustrated says that yes, the experiment has worked, but the USGA will need to make a number of changes to the course, and venue as a whole, before the championship comes back. "But it will come back" he adds. "At least, I think it should."

It's a popular response. John Garrity, retired from Sports Illustrated and now a Golf.com contributor, looks up into the rafters for a second pondering the question. He mulls it over a while longer, then says "Hmmm." Eventually he agrees that yes, it was a partial success, but he adds that spectators should receive a refund as the fan experience was terrible. Golf World's Dave Shedloski likewise says the USGA needs to make a handful of tweaks before Chambers Bay should ever be considered again.

The Scotsman's John Huggan believes the USGA went "too far down the right road." It's a thought-provoking comment, presumably meaning the organizers (specifically executive director Mike Davis) were on the right track, but perhaps went a little too far creating so many firsts (first U.S. Open on fescue, first in the Pacific Northwest, first with alternating pars on two holes, first with two totally different directions for one hole - 9th, first event with a new TV partner, etc.). "There was rightly a lot of controversy about some of the things the USGA did this week," Huggan adds. "But the answer to your question is a qualified yes."

The former Times of London golf correspondent John Hopkins, who now writes for Global Golf Post, was perhaps the quickest to respond with enthusiasm. A veteran of 140-plus major championships and considered among the profession's most revered figures, Hopkins said that on the whole, Chambers Bay and the surrounding scenery were fantastic. As for the greens, however, he cautioned the players that agronomy is not an exact science. "Even when you spend millions like the USGA did, and when you take so much time preparing the greens, something can go wrong," Hopkins says.

"The poa was a very unfortunate thing, but I think someone should have dealt with it. The 7th and 13th greens were more or less perfect, and the players said as much. So why couldn't all 18 greens have been like them? I think perhaps they will have to re-lay or reseed the greens, but the championship should definitely return here someday."

And though he's not a writer, I was also eager to pose Geoff Ogilvy the same question. The Australian, who finished with a 67 to tie for 18th, is rare among his fellow professionals as he understands the game extends beyond the ropes of the PGA Tour. He knows there are millions of golfers around the world who roll their eyes when any pro complains about the state of the greens after arriving at the course in his private Citation jet and stands to make a six-figure check or better for a week's work.

"I think we've become a little precious," Ogilvy said of his breed. "We get spoiled with near-perfect conditions every week. Yes, it would have been nice if the greens here were more consistent, but we've putted on far bumpier greens than these. The scenery is amazing, the fans were great - I'm not surprised teams don't like coming to Seattle to play the Seahawks - so, yeah, I think the U.S. Open will come back. Probably not in my time, but yeah, it'll come back."

The near unanimous, albeit occasionally grudging, acceptance of Chambers Bay as a worthy championship venue should come as great encouragement to Pacific Northwest golfers, golf fans, media, local business owners and everybody else who was involved, who watched, and was somehow else affected by the event.

We in the Pacific Northwest were prepared for a few grumbles. We watched the course get built, grow in, overcome the economic slump (just), host a fascinating U.S. Amateur in 2010, and eventually flourish under the guidance of superintendent Eric Johnson and his second-in-command Josh Lewis. Excitement levels grew steadily for five years then disappeared off the top of the chart in the weeks leading up to the championship.

But deep down, we knew some player arriving at University Place from Memphis, Tenn. - where he had just spent the week executing his usual bomb-and-gouge game on verdant fairways and greens at TPC Southwind in the FedEx St. Jude Classic - would be unable to adapt to the very different conditions at Chambers Bay, and probably implode. He'd be unable to conceal his feelings, and would tell the world how inferior the course was (turns out that player was Billy Horschel, who finished tied for eighth in Memphis, but then let loose on the USGA).

Indeed, Davis said weeks before the players arrived that Chambers Bay would not be to everyone's taste, and that players would no doubt begin "chirping" the minute they saw it. "We joke internally sometimes that if nobody's complaining, we have done something wrong," he noted. Clearly then, the USGA had no cause to think they had done anything wrong, although the intensity and constancy with which the chirping flowed must have surprised even them.

They would surely have been taken aback, for instance, by the force of Gary Player's comments on the Golf Channel before the third round. The great South African, one of just five players to win the career Grand Slam, has certainly earned his place on golf's pulpit. But to say the event was a "tragedy" and the "most unpleasant" he's seen in his life was perhaps a little overdramatic, even for him. One of Player's main gripes was the amount of water the course uses.

Matt Allen, the general manager at Chambers Bay, says each irrigated acre actually gets about 360,000 gallons a year. Let's assume that of the course's 300 or so acres, about 100 are irrigated. The watered area would therefore get 36 million gallons a year. Divide that by 365, and you get just under 99,000 gallons a day. That sounds like a lot certainly, but compare it to the 1 million-plus gallons many courses in Arizona get daily. And even those apparently thirsty Phoenix courses are positively parched compared to Tiger Woods's course in Dubai which, it is rumored, will need 4 million gallons of water a day.

Even if I misjudged the amount of irrigated turf there is at Chambers Bay, and actually half of it is irrigated, the course would see about 148,000 gallons daily. And if all the course - dunes, bunkers, trails and all - were watered, it would still require about a third as much as those courses in the Valley of the Sun.

Chambers Bay is therefore not nearly the drain on resources Player thinks it is. And though Augusta National, which Player venerates, doesn't let on how much water it uses, there's a pretty good chance the number is several times greater than that of Chambers Bay.

A year or so ago Robert Trent Jones Jr. told me Chambers Bay was actually a fine example of how degraded sites can be returned to productive uses and that, like many of Scotland's fine links, it's a muni that serves as a great community asset. "It has walking paths where non-golfers can wend through the course and encounter golfers without ever interrupting play," the course's architect said. "Natural, firm courses that don't require a lot of maintenance or water are where golf started, and it's hopefully where we're headed."

If Chambers Bay attracts roughly 38,000 rounds a year, is accessible to countless walkers, joggers, kids and dogs, is environmentally-sound, can accommodate 235,000 spectators during U.S. Open week, and can provide the county that built it a steady income for 100 years or more - thus easily recouping the $24 million it cost to build - then there is surely an awful lot to be said for it.

But is it fit for the U.S. Open, and should it get another chance as a host 10 or 20 years down the road? The writers I asked seemed to think so, but, assuming they are still playing, Horschel, Chris Kirk ("The USGA should be ashamed of itself"), Henrik Stenson ("It's like putting on broccoli"), and Sergio Garcia ("It's like playing the NBA Finals on a court with holes, slopes, no backboard and things like that") will probably think twice before coming back.

The next vacant slot on the calendar is 2024. By then, Pierce County and the USGA will hopefully have come to an agreement on the greens which could, as Ogilvy suggested, have a little bentgrass mixed in with the fescue. Local players Michael Putnam and Troy Kelly suggested they be made all poa annua - a weed according to many, but a splendid turf for greens if tended correctly.

Nine years would also give the county time to chop some of the dunes in half to prevent bottlenecks growing at certain points around the course (keep the front half so players see the same thing, just lose the back half); construct some sort of pathway or viewing stage up the left side of the 8th hole; somehow increase viewing opportunities around the glorious 10th hole; and consider ways of getting spectators down the left side of the 1st and 18th - in short, give more fans better views of the action.

Torrey Pines, which hosted its first U.S. Open in 2008, wasn't the most popular venue ever. But the fact Tiger Woods won there in a playoff nursing a damaged knee gave it one of the best U.S. Open storylines in the history of the event. The pulsating final hour at Chambers Bay, which saw Dustin Johnson come so close to winning his first major but Spieth ultimately finish one clear, will most likely work in its favor, too. (With all due respect to the 21-year-old Aussie, a Cameron Smith victory would probably have done Chambers Bay no favors whatsoever. You can imagine the headlines - "Goofy Course Produces Goofy Winner.")

Chambers Bay just about passed its initial U.S. Open test but with slightly jaded colors that struggled sometimes to get off the ground. With a few sensible but necessary modifications, its next championship should be a roaring success.

Tony Dear is an Englishman living in Bellingham, Wash. In the early 1990s he was a member of the Liverpool University golf team which played its home matches at Royal Liverpool GC. Easy access to Hoylake made it extremely difficult for him to focus on Politics, his chosen major. After leaving Liverpool, he worked as a golf instructor at a club just south of London where he also made a futile attempt at becoming a 'player.' He moved into writing when it became abundantly clear he had no business playing the game for a living. A one-time golf correspondent of the New York Sun, Tony is a member of the Golf Writers Association of America, the Pacific Northwest Golf Media Association and the Golf Travel Writers Association. He is a multi-award winning journalist, and edits his own website at www.bellinghamgolfer.com.