USGA Gearing Up for U.S. Open at Chambers Bay

On an unseasonably warm, 78-degree Monday, the USGA held its national U.S. Open Media Day in advance of the 115th playing of the major championship. The site for this year's event, Chambers Bay in University Place, Wash., promises to be a considerably different venue - and test - for the world's best golfers.

On hand at the podium were USGA officials - president Tom O'Toole, Jr., executive director Mike Davis, Championship Committee lead Diana Murphy and senior director of U.S. Open Championships, Reg Jones, and Pierce County Executive Pat McCarthy.

Opened in June 2007, the Robert Trent Jones, Jr.-designed course is owned by Pierce County and occupies a sweeping stretch of Puget Sound frontage that was previously a gravel and sand quarrry. Jones and team crafted a links-style layout that is completely grassed with fine fescue, two attributes previous U.S. Open venues have never had.

In describing the course, Davis, who will be responsible for course set-up for the Open, noted, "This is a bold site this. It's a big site. There's a lot of scale to this site. I heard people say it's a 'wow' site.

"It's obviously expansive, and I say that because we don't have anything that we play a U.S. Open on that's remotely similar to this. Where you can be in parts and parts of the property and see all 18 holes played at once."

In addition, Davis said the playing corridors will be unlike any other Open. "Easily, easily the widest golf course we have ever played a U.S. Open on. At least going back to the 1950s when kind of the modern way to set a U.S. Open came in place.

"And what's interesting about that is in some ways you think, well that's going to make it easier because the players don't need to be as precise off the teeing ground. But contrary to I would push back on that and say, yes, they're wider, but there's a lot of slope to these fairway, they were purposely designed to be wide, so the angles coming into these greens where you could get an advantage.

"So I think that's something that's going to play very interesting. I look at the 13th hole and that is 105 yards wide. To give you an idea, just to put it in perspective, when we go to Winged Foot or Oakmont, fairways there may be 24 to 30, 32 yards wide. Just to put it in perspective of the difference in the width."

The fescue turf will also be different than previous sites for America's national golf championship. "This course will positively play firm and fast. Even if we get some rain, this is built on all sand, which is a great, obviously, drying or medium to allow for good drainage."

The grass also reacts differently than other strains when being hit by golf balls. "It's a great grass to play golf on because it doesn't have any tackiness to it," Davis noted. "It's a thin blade of grass, round and the ball hits it, where a lot of other grasses will kind of grab it, fescue, it skids.

"And what that means is, when you're playing golf, you got to think about what happens when your ball hits, where it's going to bounce to and roll to. So it's a fascinating grass on which to play."

Because of the rise and fall of the property - the routing goes up and down three major elevations - the USGA plans to do some interesting things with the tees. "One of the things that's unique to this is the architects put in what they refer to it as ribbon tees, these tees that just kind of meander," Davis said.

During the Open Chambers Bay will be a par 70, but that will be about the only constant as officials will move the tees around daily, depending on weather and course conditions, including flip-flopping the pars on the first and 18th holes, normally a par-4 and par-5, respectively.

"It allows us to put tee markers where we want," Davis added about the course's flexibility. "And in some cases we may end up putting tee markers on slight slopes as opposed to . . . always going to have teeing markers on very flat areas. But there may be some where we give the players a little downhill slope, a little uphill slope, a side slope. So that's interesting."

Davis noted that because of the amount of vagaries at Chambers Bay, players who study the course the deepest will have the best chance of success. "There is no way, no way, a player would have success here at Chambers Bay unless he really studies the golf course and learns it. The idea of coming in and playing two practice rounds and having your caddie just walk it and using your yardage book, that person's done. Will not win the U.S. Open."

Defending champion Martin Kaymer, who posted two straight rounds of 5-under 65 last year at Pinehurst No. 2 to set a new 36-hole U.S. Open record of 130 that eventually led to an eight-stroke victory over Erik Compton and Rickie Fowler, appeared during a video conference during the Media Day. The 30-year-old German is in San Francisco preparing for this week's WGC-Cadillac Match Play at TPC Harding Park, which starts Wednesday.

As for his knowledge of the course, Kaymer said, 'I haven't really been to Chambers Bay yet, so I don't it's very difficult to talk about it. I heard some stories about it. I met with Robert Trent Jones at the Masters briefly and we talked a little bit about it. He was involved there a lot. So, yeah, I guess that it looks very similar to Whistling Straits [where Kaymer won his first major, the 2010 PGA Championship], which is quite nice. Obviously I like those kinds of golf courses."

Kaymer does plan to get a closer look of Chambers Bay in the near future. "That's a good possibility that we're going to go there a little bit earlier. Maybe on Saturday or Sunday the weekend before. I haven't planned for it really yet. There are a lot of other big tournaments coming up in a week like this, for example, the championship where I'm defending next week.

"So a lot of things to think about that, first of all. And then you, obviously, I think it's always good if you go there the weekend before it, because there are no spectators yet, you usually have the golf course yourself, so you can really get a lot of good stuff in, a lot of good work in. So that is my, what I plan in my mind now. I haven't talked to my caddie yet about it, but something like this we're going to do."

USGA officials believe Chambers Bay will prove a stern test in trying to identify the a worthy champion of the 2015 U.S. Open. In addition, the venue will offer spectacular vistas of Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains to the west, and with its water-side locale, varying weather conditions. "More flexibility here than any we have encountered," Davis said of the venue.

"Which is nice for not only the architecture here, but given the different weather conditions we could get, it's good. But what that really does is challenge the players during practice rounds to learn as much as they can about the golf course and one element I didn't say that we do feel is important about a U.S. Open or for that matter any test of golf in a USGA championship is your ability to think on your feet."

Here's a full transcript of Monday's U.S. Open Media Day at Chambers Bay.

MODERATOR: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for coming. My name is Adam Barr, Senior Director of Communications for the USGA. Welcome to media day for the 115th United States Open championship to be conducted by the United States Golf Association here at Chambers Bay. Joining us this morning starting from my left is our President, Tom O'Toole Jr., Pierce County Executive Pat McCarthy, USGA Vice President Diana Murphy, USGA Executive Director Mike Davis, and USGA Senior Director of U.S. Open, Reg Jones. We would like to begin this morning with some remarks from our president, Mr. O'Toole.

TOM O'TOOLE JR.: Thank you, Adam, and welcome everybody to this very exciting media day here in the Pacific Northwest. Thank you especially to the media who is here to cover our most important championship and I know I speak on behalf of the entire USGA family, we're honored and excited to bring our national Open championship to the Pacific Northwest for the first time ever in its 115 year history.

It's great, isn't it? This community is truly incredible. We were humbled by the support you've given us. More than 5,000 volunteer applications were received in less than 72 hours. Tickets sales for this championship sold out in an unprecedented amount of time. Over the past 18 months you have asked, "How can we help," and have willingly lent your time and energy to produce this championship I know all of us can be proud of.

Hosting a U.S. Open for the first time in a new location is a new experience for all of us. The spirit of state wide cooperate that we have had has been nothing short of amazing. And will ultimately assure this success. This is your time to welcome the world's greatest golfers and the thousands of spectators that to view and see this place. Please accept our heart felt thanks.

You told the golf communities that there's a series of firsts here in new experiences and opportunities with this championship. First and foremost, besides coming to the Pacific Northwest for the first time, as I mentioned, is our first U.S. Open with our broadcast partners at Fox Sports. Also the new technology and fun experiences to engage our spectators and fans. All of which we look forward to sharing with you today.

We wish to take this opportunity to thank Governor Jay Inslee, the City of University Place, Pierce County, for their commitment and of course their gracious hospitality. All of which without we could not have realized this dream. To that end it is my distinguished honor to bring to the podium and introduce to you the county executive of Pierce County, Pat McCarthy to say a few words. Pat, thank you.

PAT MCCARTHY: Thank you, and good morning, everyone. I'm delighted to be here. For those of you who may not know, Pierce County is the second-largest county in Washington State with over 820,000 residents. I'm also President of the Puget Sound Regional Council, which represents upwards of three million people in a four county region and I say this because I've seen first hand how the excitement across the region is growing for the first U.S. Open in the Pacific Northwest.

We have spent years getting ready for this. Our Pierce County team and all of our partners are very excited that it's almost time to find out who this year's national champion will be. Many of you already know that Chambers Bay is a very special place. Rain or shine, golfers are coming from all over the country and all over the world to play this magnificent course. In a few moments I know that Mike Davis will do a great job of explaining why Chambers Bay is an important example for the golf industry, but Chambers Bay is so much more than a U.S. Open worthy golf course.

This site, which we call Chambers Creek Regional Park, has more than three miles of paved trails, more than two miles of beach access, 17 acres of open lawn, plus two soccer fields, an outstanding place for kids at the playground by the sound, and even more trails through the wooded canyon along Chambers Creek.

As you know, Chambers Bay is only eight years old. So it doesn't have the golf history that other U.S. Open sites have. Although we did host an exciting U.S. Amateur Championship in 2010. But it does have an interesting history nonetheless. Chambers Bay's great story of reclamation and conservation.

In its earliest days this property was home to Native Americans who fished and hunted this beautiful area. As the west grew, the site became a gravel and sand mine that supported growth in the northwest for more than a century. And when the mining work was done, Pierce County had the foresight to step up and purchase 930 acres.

Former county executive John Ladenburg, who is here today, had a fabulous idea. To build a world class golf course that would be an economic driver for Pierce County. I am proud of the work that my team has done over the course of the last close to seven years to make this idea a reality. The golf course makes other, makes those other amenities, the trails, the beach, the park land, the play ground, available to the public. The site, this site, is truly a gem for the region and I am so excited that people all over the world will get to see it. But first we have to do our part to support an outstanding national championship.

I've had a great team in place to work for this, a day that we are anticipating, some key leaders of my team are here today, and I just would like to you wave your hand when I call your name my Deputy County Executive Kevin Phelps, Parks Director Tony Tipton, Public Works Director Brian Ziegler, Economic Development Director Denise Dyer, Keri Rooney and Communications Director Hunter George. We are blessed to have a number of great partners as well who will who are dedicated to supporting USGA in hosting a U.S. Open that is successful for all. The players, the spectators, the volunteers, the vendors, the media, and more.

Here is just a partial list of some important partners. The golf course is operated by KemperSports, with an outstanding team managed by general manager Matt Allen. Chambers Bay architect Robert Trent Jones, Junior keeps a close eye on his creation. University Place Mayor Denise McCluskey and the city council from UP and the staff have been integral partners. And Governor Jay Inslee and his administration are very excited about this opportunity to showcase the Pacific Northwest and Washington State.

Members of the Washington state legislature and especially the Pierce County delegation, elected leaders and staff from the cities of Tacoma, Lakewood, Puyallup, Sumner, Dupont, Steilacoom and more.

Our local visitor bureau, which is called Travel Tacoma and Pierce County. The Puyallup Sumner Chamber Of Commerce, law enforcement agencies from around the region and here in Pierce County and across the state. And of course I saved the most important for last, because we wouldn't be here today without the USGA. It has been a fun and educational experience to work with the USGA. Their leaders and staff are committed to conducting world class championships.

We like to joke in my office that they have contingency plans for their contingency plans. But it's true, no detail is too small. From Tom O'Toole Jr. to Mike Davis, to Reg Jones, to Danny Sink and to the rest of their talented staff, it's been a privilege and an honor to be a part of U.S. Open history. Thanks to the USGA and all of your partners, this is a historic opportunity for Pierce County for the State of Washington, for the Pacific northwest, we are ready. Thank you for coming today and please enjoy the rest of your day.

TOM O'TOOLE JR: Well, thank you, Pat, and of course from again from everybody at the USGA, thank you for your commitment that we received from Pierce County. You've been a wonderful partner and we are ready, thanks to all that you have done with your staff and group. Without it, really we couldn't have done it. Thank you. The USGA Championship Committee, led by Diana Murphy, has pledged our staff's full resources towards this first U.S. Open ever in the State of Washington. Diana is here with us this morning to share a few words concerning the fan experience to which I referenced earlier this coming June. Diana.

DIANA MURPHY: Good morning. Thank you, Tom. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the 5,200 volunteers that have committed to serving this U.S. Open. What's even more significant about that number is more than 4,000 of the volunteers come directly from Washington State. And their eagerness and excitement to support us at this championship is obviously wonderful, it's contagious and we can't wait to get to U.S. Open week.

I would also like to take a few minutes to share with you some of the variety of initiatives that we have established to make sure that this really is a U.S. Open For All. This morning we officially launched a new usopen.com, the primary source of information for fans and spectators alike. Among its many features you will be able to download a spectator guide, view detailed transportation championship facility maps, and find a comprehensive schedule of activities inside and outside the ropes.

We're also ready to offer a unique experience with three digital live channels on usopen.com during championship rounds. This in addition to live scoring, real live highlights of groupings and starting times will begin from Monday through Sunday. Our official U.S. Open app will launch on June 12. Which will be a great benefit, we believe, to fans and in particular to, particularly to our spectators on site. By logging into the championship Wi Fi with their mobile devices, fans will have access to an interactive map that will show particular players and where they might be on the course as well as all of our grand stands concessions and other campus points of interest are located.

In addition, we have enhanced our on line leaderboard experience with play by play ball position data, video highlights, and other statistical information for each player. We dedicated a significant amount of resources to our digital platforms this year. And we really do hope that all of our fans enjoy these new features. We encourage everyone to carefully review the spectator guide found in usopen.com, know before you go, to be fully prepared for their days at the championship.

You can also find a complete ticket information there as well and including the availability of some practice round tickets that are currently on sale. As Tom said, we did sell out at a record pace for the U.S. Open specifically, but we do have several thousand practice round tickets that are still available. Also found on usopen.com is our complete guide for Open For All for our entire fan events schedule. This series of activities are created to celebrate this national championship and to inform fans of all the other work that the USGA does to support the game.

Major activities begin actually this Wednesday, the 29th, with the national tour of the U.S. Open trophy, with our friends at Lexus and Fox. We'll launch the tour in New York City, where the USGA was founded in 1894, and end the championship week in this region with a series of stops in Seattle and Tacoma. And you can see that on Fox & Friends again Wednesday, April 29th.

We have also planned an interactive epic putt experience at Sea-Tac Airport, beginning May 4, that celebrates several of our favorite U.S. Open moments; as long as, in addition to a really fun interactive STEM station connecting science to golf at the pack science center.

We hope you'll join us here at Chambers Bay on Sunday, June 14th, for our kick off of U.S. Open Championship week. The activities will be open to the public and will focus on families and appreciation of the military in honor of National Flag Day, a color guard for joint base, from joint base Lewis McChord will holed a special flag raising ceremony. The day will also feature junior activities and the opportunity for guests to have their photos taken with the U.S. Open Championship trophy.

Two days later, on Tuesday, June 16, we'll honor Barbara Nicklaus with our Bob Jones Award to be broadcast live via again usga.org from the Museum Of Glass in Tacoma. The Bob Jones Award is the USGA's highest honor that we give every year to a person that really personifies Bob Jones sportsmanship, integrity, and certainly respect for the game.

And while we continue the celebration at Chambers Bay with practice rounds and the drama of championship play, fans without tickets can enjoy a live viewing at South Lake Union Park beginning Wednesday through Sunday, championship week. A release with all this information is available at the registration desk, as well as certainly on line. The effort to provide a 360-degree fan and spectator experience amplifies the reason why we are here, to conduct the 115th United States Open national championship and to provide a comprehensive test to some of the most elite players in the world.

Among those, certainly is our 2014 U.S. Open champion, Martin Kaymer. And as Adam mentioned earlier, we hope to have Martin join us momentarily. So Adam, if you are ready to share with us a few highlights of Martin's championship last year and to see if we can get him to join us now. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Thank you, Diana, and as you can see, both inside and outside the ropes there's a great deal of excitement coming around our national championship. Even more now you can tell your grandchildren you were at that rarest of events, a press conference that is ahead of schedule.

So, with that in mind, we have made arrangements, thanks to our friends at the PGA Tour, to have Martin Kaymer join us via satellite from Harding Park in San Francisco, where he's preparing for the World Golf Championship Match Play event this week on the PGA Tour. He was playing a practice round and is due to join us at 11, which we're ahead of.

So what would I like to do now is, at least for a time, until I hit the high sign that we have Martin on satellite, accept a few questions for our panel up here with the understanding that no bad manners intended, but I may have to abruptly interrupt a question or an answer to work with our Harding Park time for Mr. Kaymer who is coming off the course directly from a practice round to talk to us. Alternatively, what we can do now is have Mike Davis talk a little bit about the golf course and the championship inside the ropes, with the understanding that when Martin comes up we'll take a pause for that and then Mike will continue afterwards. Mike.

MIKE DAVIS: Good morning, everybody. I am used to being cut off by PGA Tour players. So this will be nothing new. (Laughter.) Anyway, let me start off, if you would, indulge me just a little bit to also offer some thanks and let me start out first of all with those of you in the media. The USGA, as Diana mentioned, has existed since 1894 and, quite simply, our mission is for the betterment of the game of golf. And we simply couldn't do what we do, whether it's our national championships like the U.S. Open, or our governance function, what we do to help sustain the game, growing the game, without you. So thank you.

And let me also, there's been a lot of people thanked already but I really do want to mention a few people, because this has been quite the journey the last 10 or so years to get to this point and we couldn't be happier. But first of all from Pierce County, I'll start with its leader, Pat McCarthy, Pat, you have been an absolute joy to work with. You have been incredibly supportive. You've been the team, I just can't say enough good things and I know I speak on behalf of the whole USGA with that. So thank you for that.

And I also need to, there's been three people with the county that I can't even begin to tell you how many conference calls we have been on over the years and thoughts about how are we going to get to where we are, but Kevin Phelps, Brian Ziegler and Tony Tipton, guys, thank you very much for all the work you've done.

You think that, next year, we'll be going to Oakmont Country Club, that's probably well it's been around more than a hundred years. Last year we were at Pinehurst, been around roughly a century. Same thing with Merion. And you go to those sites and you kind of know what to expect. But here this was new and a lot of things had to happen in a short period of time. So, gentlemen, thanks.

And I'm going to mention [former Pierce County executive] John Ladenburg in just a little bit, but before I get there, KemperSports has also been a huge, huge supporter. Not only here at Chambers Bay, but in a few weeks we'll we have got the Women's Amateur Four Ball Championship, the inaugural one down at Bandon Dunes and they happen to manage that. But Josh I believe is here somewhere, who is the president, and also Matt Allen who is the general manager. Matt, we couldn't have done this without you, so thank you.

And then the two real superintendents on the course, Eric Johnson and Josh Lewis, these guys are all stars. I make this comment virtually every year, that the most important person at the U.S. Open is indeed the superintendents. They're the ones that make it happen on the golf course, other than the drama the players bring us. And guys, have you been superb. You know your fescue grasses, and thank you for all your support.

Then, last group I want to thank are really the people who helped make this vision come true. And it starts with John Ladenburg. John was the predecessor of Pat and John, for not your vision, we would never be here and this golf course wouldn't be here. And it was fun to work with you and watch you operate. You had naysayers along the way and you made it happen. So well done, my friend.

You can't help but to thank, particularly those of you who are local, Pat said it right. This is so much more than a golf course. One of the great golf courses I might add in the United States, or for that matter the world, this is much more. When you think about what Chambers Creek used to be, which was really an environmental negative and all of a sudden you turn it into a park. You turn it into this great golf course. It's able to host things national championships.

And, you know, this is, when we're all gone, they're going to look back a hundred years from now and say, wow, what a vision somebody had to make this public. And so it's just terrific. With that, some other visionaries we have in the room were the architects that made this happen. And you know, there he's some, if you go back if you like golf course architecture, some of the most the greatest golf courses in the world were laid out on just great pieces of land. Where the architect said, I'm going to put the first hole here and route the second hole there and basically found great property and then built a great golf course.

Well here this was intriguing because it's right on the water and there's a lot of sand, as [Bob Jones liked to say, it was a sand box out there. But this was all envisioned. This was created. Everything out there was really man made. And it sure doesn't look man made now. It was a treat working with you, Bob, with Bruce, boy, did you deliver. And it will be so neat to see this, this played in front of the whole world with truly the world's best players. So thank you.

Also mention, I don't know whether he's here, but somebody that used to work for you, Jay Blasi, helped along the way, so thanks for all your work too. So, I guess before we get with Martin and, Adam, let me know when that happens. Why did this happen, I guess? I can remember roughly 10 years ago sitting in my office in Far Hills, New Jersey and the phone rang and it was one of our regional directors who happened to be based on the West Coast and said, Mike, there's this site out in the Pacific Northwest that one day might be good enough to host a U.S. Open.

But I'm holding phone out here, yeah, I heard this before. But what was interesting about it is, number one, it was the Pacific Northwest. And as Tom O'Toole said, in 120 years of playing this U.S. Open, starting in 1895, we have never been to this part of the country. So I said, well, keep going here. And he said, well listen, the property is right on the Puget Sound. It's gorgeous. Well that's interesting. It's almost a thousand acres. Really?

So all of a sudden you're thinking, well, okay, we have enough land for the infrastructure. And then it's owned by the county. It's going to be public access, which is wonderful. The fact that people are going to be able to play a U.S. Open course is something very special. And then the last thing was, oh by the way, it's all sand. And anybody that knows anything about golf courses knows that any golf course built on sand is always going to be better than a course not built on sand or heavy soils.

So, that's really kind of how it got started. I vividly remember coming out and meeting you, John, and meeting Bob, and taking a look over this fence down at the property. And at that point it was just piles of sand remnants of this old gravel and sand mine. And to think about where it is today is just, it's fun to look back and it happened so quickly. But well done. In terms of Chambers Bay, what I did want to talk a little bit about is the personality, the characteristics of the golf course, as well as what we plan to do in terms of its setup.

So, just my views and certainly these would mimic some of the other people that have commented on Chambers Bay, but this is a bold site this. It's a big site. There's a lot of scale to this site. I heard people say it's a "wow" site. It's obviously expansive, and I say that because we don't have anything that we play a U.S. Open on that's remotely similar to this. Where you can be in parts and parts of the property and see all 18 holes played at once. Obviously it's a tree less property. Almost tree less.

That one Douglas Fir there on the 16th tee. But you think from an architectural standpoint, it's a bold architecture. And I say that because some of the greens have a lot of undulation, relative to other places we take a U.S. Open. The routing itself is very interesting on this property. If you really study it, on the front nine, twice you climb the hill and you come back down and then on the back nine you traverse your way up the hill and come back down one time. And it really does make for interesting ebb and flow to the test of golf and certainly it adds to the endurance in terms of walking the golf course too.

But there are some neat things. I mean, for instance, one of the things that's unique to this is the architects put in what they refer to it as ribbon tees, these tees that just kind of meander. And it allows us to put tee markers where we want. And in some cases we may end up putting tee markers on slight slopes as opposed to you think, well, you're always going to have teeing markers on very flat areas. But there may be some where we give the players a little downhill slope, a little uphill slope, a side slope. So that's interesting.

There are places out on the golf course where you got blind shots, semi blind shots, which in and of itself is a very interesting thing. Makes you feel like you're across the pond in one of the great links courses. So we were talking earlier of Fox Sports this morning, this is a very wide golf course. Easily, easily the widest golf course we have ever played a U.S. Open on. At least going back to the 1950s when kind of the modern way to set a U.S. Open came in place.

And what's interesting about that is in some ways you think, well that's going to make it easier because the players don't need to be as precise off the teeing ground. But contrary to I would push back on that and say, yes, they're wider, but there's a lot of slope to these fairway, they were purposely designed to be wide, so the angles coming into these greens where you could get an advantage. So I think that's something that's going to play very interesting. I look at the 13th hole and that is 105 yards wide. To give you an idea, just to put it in perspective, when we go to Winged Foot or Oakmont, fairways there may be 24 to 30, 32 yards wide. Just to put it in perspective of the difference in the width.

This course will positively play firm and fast. Even if we get some rain, this is built on all sand, which is a great, obviously, drying or medium to allow for good drainage. But in addition to that, it was planted in all fine fescue. And fine fescue, not only doesn't need a lot of water, doesn't need a lot of nutrients, which makes it, from a sustainability standpoint, a wonderful grass. But it's a great grass to play golf on because it doesn't have any tackiness to it. It's a thin blade of grass, round and the ball hits it, where a lot of other grasses will kind of grab it, fescue, it skids.

And what that means is, when you're playing golf, you got to think about what happens when your ball hits, where it's going to bounce to and roll to. So it's a fascinating grass on which to play. Another thing that's very unique about Chambers Bay, relative to other U.S. Open sites, is that there are so many slopes and undulations to this property and the way it was designed. And I say that because if it's firm and fast and then you add slopes and undulations, from a player's standpoint, you really have to think your way around this golf course. You, again, you have to think about what's going to happen when the ball lands, but in addition to that, what you find out there is that some of these slopes are very player friendly where you can use them to your advantage, if you know they're there and you plan that way.

I mean, there may be a back stop behind a green, as an example, that you play up to the hole and you can play it long and have the ball roll back. Then there's other times where these slopes are actually used as a defense of the golf course, whether it's some humps in the fairways or slopes in the fairways or slopes in the greens or undulations.

So it's a fascinating mix of both knowing how to use these slopes, but knowing how to stay away from certain slopes. Another feature about Chambers Bay, uneven lies. There are a tremendous number of uneven lies out there. And I don't care whether you're a beginner or an intermediate or you're one of these elite players in the world, hitting off an uneven lie is always going to be more difficult.

Elevation changes. Another thing, we don't play a golf course for a U.S. Open that even comes close to the elevation changes you have here at Chambers Bay. And as I mentioned with the routing, you work your way up the hill, three times and you work your way down the hill. And even when you're not traversing that hill, there are a lot of elevation changes and that just makes distance control all the more difficult.

So you got to learn it, particularly when you get your ball in the air, if you're playing up the hill, it's not going to go as far. If you're playing down the hill, it's got more chance for the wind to affect it. So I think that aspect is going to be something that will be really fascinating to watch the players challenge.

Then, the last thing I will say about the architecture and probably the most intriguing, is that it truly allows us, it gives us great flexibility in terms of setting up the golf course. Virtually every hole out there we will be playing from different teeing grounds on different days.

Some teeing grounds match certain hole locations beautifully, this flexibility allows us to set the golf course up that if it's wet out there and the ball's not running as much we can play it is certain way. If it's really dry and firm, if it's real windy, whether we get the southwest wind or maybe a north, northwest wind, it really is intriguing. And it allows us to really showcase some of the great architectural features of the golf course.

So I think that from that standpoint, from the administration standpoint, neat to setup. But from a player standpoint, what you're going to find is the players have so many options playing Chambers Bay that you're going to see a group of three players where somebody may hit driver, somebody may hit a 3 wood, and then somebody else will hit a long iron or somebody plays into the green and uses the back stop behind the green and somebody goes right for the flag or somebody uses an undulation on the green to get their ball to the flag.

It's fascinating. And to that point I would contend that there is no way, no way, a player would have success here at Chambers Bay unless he really studies the golf course and learns it. The idea of coming in and playing two practice rounds and having your caddie just walk it and using your yardage book, that person's done. Will not win the U.S. Open.

And I say that because that's some of the beauty of U.S. Open sites that when they're set up in a difficult, stern manner, are to really test all aspects of the game, that brings out all these features in the architecture and this one will be magnified in that regard. So, this is going to take the players and their caddies really studying the golf course to have success.Before we get Martin and I've got a couple other things in terms of setup. Let me talk a little bit about our strategy in terms of not only what we're trying to achieve with the U.S. Open golf course setup, but this would hold true for the U.S. Girls' Junior, the Women's Open, the U.S. Amateur.

So with that, there's this mindset that we're just trying to make the U.S. Open hard. Well, it is hard and we would never deny that. But ultimately, what we're trying to do is make the most whom comprehensive test we can. We, this is about shot making skills. Which means we want to reward somebody who can hit the ball a long way. We want to reward somebody that's got accuracy. Who can control their distance. Who can control their spin, put spin on it, take spin off the ball. Who can hit it high, low, curve it right to left, left to right. Who can recover.

U.S. Opens, you're always going to at some point get yourself in trouble. How are you going to get yourself out? Sometimes the conservative route is the best route. And it's obviously about short game around the greens and putting on the greens. But beyond that, the U.S. Open and all of our championships tests are more than just shot making. It really gets down to how do you manage yourself on the golf course. How do you think your way around? Do you play conservatively, aggressive? When you're faced with a risk reward option, how do you execute on that. How do you think your way through it?

And, frankly, nerves are a part of it too. Particularly when you get in one of those lead positions Saturday, Sunday, those hands of yours are not going to feel the same way. The brain's not going to be thinking the same way. It's not just the players, the caddies get nervous too. So that's all part of the test. But again, this isn't all about making it as hard as we can. It will be, trust me, it will be hard enough, but that's not what we're after and what we are after, I would tell you also, some excitement there.

We think about the setup, come these final holes on Sunday to say, how we can get big shifts in scoring to where somebody may birdie or eagle a hole and somebody else may double bogey a hole. And that makes golf exciting. And it really so we try to achieve that. But the bottom line here is that we're not looking for a certain score to win this U.S. Open. That's not a metric for our success. So it's not even par contrary to what so many people think. It's about providing a good complete test of golf.

Let me try to finish here. Golf course setup. We learned a lot during the U.S. Amateur in 2010. I would tell you, if I'm being very honest, we missed the boat on the stroke play portion. It simply got too firm for us. So we learned a lot about Chambers Bay and its nuances. But match play ended up playing beautifully. We basically had the golf course too firm, even though we tried to take away some of that firmness before stroke play started, we didn't quite get there. And then we essentially flooded the golf course the evening when stroke play ended.

And what's fascinating this just goes to how good Chambers Bay is but you had the world's best amateurs playing there. And we ended up having No. 1 playing No. 2 in the final match. That just goes to show you, it brought out the very best in those players. How long are we going to play this golf course? I don't actually know. We don't know. It probably will be somewhere between 7,200 and 7,600 yards on a given day.

But time it's really going to be dependent on what the weather's giving us. So we will give you daily yardages, literally tee markers to flagsticks each one of the days. The putting greens will be rolling somewhere in the 12, maybe 12.5 range on the USGA Stimpmeter. Fairways will be cut at a half an inch. The roughs. When you're out there playing today you're going to see that the roughs are aptly named. They're rough.

You'll see that some of them are actually kind of a brighter green than you would expect. Well, about a month ago we started to feed them a little bit, because we needed to get some, a little bit more penalty to them, which you will say, boy, you went over the top on this one, but what we do plan to graduate these roughs, starting the week before the U.S. Open. So you're going to see us start to take it down. We may see some of the roughs lean out a little bit. So right now we're just growing grass, essentially.

Hazards. You'll see some sandy areas out there that are simply going to be played through the green. Those generally speaking have vegetation growing out of them. They're not maintained on a regular basis versus this large expanse of bunkers that are out there that are maintained. Those will be played as hazards. And the wind, I don't know what to really expect, although maybe a club of wind we might get some days you, but it will generally speaking come out of the southwest or we may get a reverse wind out of the north so we will plan accordingly.

Let me finish up here. The question is, that will come up is, some of you may have heard, we are playing this as a par 70. But we're going to take the first and 18th holes and actually flip the pars on certain days. So some days the first hole will play as a par 4 while the 18th hole plays as a par 5. And you can actually see them out there to your right is the 18th hole; to your left is the first hole. And then other days we'll play the first hole as a par 5 and the closing hole as a par 4.

Why did we do that? We weren't trying to be innovative; we weren't trying to be cute. It all got down to the architecture of the course. That it gives so much wonderful flexibility that, if you can see up there and I don't have a pointer, that the drive zones as a par 4 and par 5 are for both those holes are completely different. And they play different. There's a risk-reward element to both holes. The putting greens are very bold designs in both cases. We just felt some of the holes were better fit for a risk reward par 5 and others as a long par 4.

So, that's why. But at the end of it, it's probably a par nine and really that trophy we're going to be giving away there, we're just looking for the low 72 hole score and so in some ways par is a bit irrelevant. So, with that, let me turn it over to Martin. But, I've already gotten a question a fair amount of times is, how are the players going to like Chambers Bay? What are they going to think? I think the answer would be exactly the same as we would say every year in that is that some of the players will absolutely embrace the architecture and embrace the golf course setup. They will focus really on learning it. Others will chirp.

And what's interesting, arguably the best U.S. Open player of all time, Jack Nicklaus, who by the way is our name sake on the gold U.S. Open medal, he used to love that when he would walk in and hear certain players chirping, so he would say, "okay, that player's gone, I don't have to worry about him. That player's gone." I really do think that there's something to that. That moving the National Open championship around to different courses gives you different architecture, the different courses for different horses, and I think those that not only embrace the architecture and the golf course setup, but really spend the time here at Chambers Bay learning the nuances are going to have a successful time. So with that, Adam, thank you, everybody, again for attending.

MODERATOR: Thank you, Mike. Martin and everybody, for being flexible with our schedule. While we're getting the audio connection with Martin going, perhaps we could take a question or two. Anybody? For any of the people up here?

Q. Mike, is this going to be the most flexibility that you've had for a U.S. Open course ever? You talk about 1 and 18; you talk about what you did on 9 with two different tee sets. And then the ribbon tees and what you can do with the greens. Is this by far maybe the most flexibility that you or the people are going to plan out the course?

MIKE DAVIS: Without a doubt. More flexibility here than any we have encountered. Which is nice for not only the architecture here, but given the different weather conditions we could get, it's good. But what that really does is challenge the players during practice rounds to learn as much as they can about the golf course and one element I didn't say that we do feel is important about a U.S. Open or for that matter any test of golf in a USGA championship is your ability to think on your feet. It's that we may surprise you with something, some element, and in the heat of the battle, how will you think through it? How will your caddie think through it? Because we really do feel that that's part of the test.

Q. The rough, where did that come out of? Initially it wasn't designed it was designed without rough and you made it pretty thick at least right now. Do you think it's necessary?

MIKE DAVIS: Very good question. You're exactly right. That this was, this was a golf course designed in a wonderful way, and it was very open. Almost to the point where you couldn't get your self off a closely mown area unless you hit an errant shot up into one of the dunes. I think coming into this we looked at each hole, hole by hole and as I mentioned, widest course we have ever had, but you take some of the holes as an example, where the 7th hole would be a pretty good example, it's a dogleg left, a little bit of a cape architectural feature to it. And we just felt there that we wanted to not only test in this, in that case distance and your ability to get your ball to the green, but also some accuracy.

So there we grew some rough in the left side simply to say, if you got the ability to curve your ball left to right, you're going to get an advantage. That's going to play wider. And whereas for the recreational player, if they hit it way left, they're just going to continue to chase their ball up the hill. In this case, the world's best, if they could just bomb it out left and take that wonderful hazard that the architect's built on the right out of play, that really would compromise that hole.

So, we did that in some places. As I mentioned, the rough is absolutely thicker and longer in some places right now than we will have it for the U.S. Open. But the idea was to get it growing and we'll give it a haircut beforehand and graduate it so the areas closer to the playing area, the fairway in most cases, will be less penal.

Q. What metrics or indices you will you be looking at to determine if the U.S. Open returns to Chambers Bay in the future?

MIKE DAVIS: Another good question. When we get through this and certainly Tom and Diana can comment on this as well, but our staff and our championship Committee will really do a pose championship assessment on every aspect of it. So Reg Jones to my left who really overseeing everything to do with the U.S. Open on a day to day basis, he's going to look at things from an operational standpoint, a community support standpoint, certainly that will be one. We will look at it from a broadcasting standpoint and say, how was it? How did it show? Not only in the United States, but how did it show around the world.

We'll certainly get some feedback from the players as we typically do from them. And, but we'll get it and say, we want to take this championship and all our championships to the absolute best venues. We're so excited about this and, candidly, we're going in here thinking there's no reason this shouldn't come back. But there may be some aspect to it we just didn't see or so I think that we go in all these during a post championship assessment and going from there.

Q. You talked about the players chirping. What are they most likely to chirp about do you think?

MIKE DAVIS: My sense is probably just and I say this in the most positive way, the uniqueness, this is a one of a kind site for us at a U.S. Open. There's going to be some players who just love this ground game, who love the imagination, who as I say, embrace it. Then there's other players who they 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 their ball lands.

So, again, it's just a different mindset. You can take those players and you can flip them maybe for next year at Oakmont or flip them when we go to Winged Foot or wherever the case might be. So it would not be a U.S. Open if we didn't get some chirping. It's just a part of it. And we accept that. It's actually, in fact, we joke internally sometimes that if nobody's complaining, we have done something wrong. (Laughter.)

Q. Regarding the weather related changes. How much advance notice will the players get?

MIKE DAVIS: Weather? Yeah, so what we do, we give a player memo that's prepared in this case by Diana, who is our chairman of the Championship Committee, myself and then Jeff Hall, who is very involved with golf course setup too. And we give them an idea of, in certain cases, how holes will play. For example, the ninth hole, dramatic difference. You got the tee up top that literally is a hundred foot drop. It's like a parachute shot. And then there's tees way down below that's basically the same height as the green. We'll let them know ahead of time that we do indeed plan to play both teeing grounds. But there is that element of surprise that we think is important and we're not going to show our cards on everything.

Q. How did the relatively mild winter out here affect the grass and how much of a benefit was it in terms of getting the course ready?

MIKE DAVIS: The winter that you had back here, thankfully you didn't have the winter that we had in the northeast, because it was tough back there. But here it was one of the best winters in terms of growing grass that you ever had. And our two supers were giddy about it. I mean literally they would say, they literally were mowing grass in January and February. That just doesn't happen.

So, we actually went into this fall a little bit weak in terms of some of the grass coverage on the putting greens, to the point where we were a little concerned about it. We sat down with Pierce County, we sat down with KemperSports. They came up with a wonderful plan, along with our championship agronomist, as well as our agronomist that lives just over in Gig Harbor, and they came up with this marvelous plan and we came out of the winter better than we went into the fall. That's unheard of. So we really got fortunate.

Q. Because these guys are going to be processing so much information early in the week, will that affect your guys' setup the first couple days and in fact will you soften up the setup just because these guys will be learning on the fly?

MIKE DAVIS: Interesting question. In some ways Mother Nature is going to dictate, do we have, do we have some dry days coming into the U.S. Open where it's really firm and bouncy, which makes the golf course play shorter than it make it's play harder. Or is it softer. Then what's the prediction of the wind. So we go into it with the week prior we really get together our game plan on the golf course setup. We do the preliminary hole locations, we try to match those with certain teeing grounds, have a nice balance for each day.

We're not trying to make Sunday any more difficult than Thursday. But at the same time, we will be looking at weather forecasts to the extent you can get good weather forecasts, and make our plan. One of the things we do is, this question came up yesterday when we were meeting with some of the Fox representatives, they asked the question, how much do you listen to the player feedback on Monday through Wednesday. And we listen to it, but I would tell you we observe much more than we listen. We want to be out there and watching how the practice rounds are being played. Where they're driving it. Where balls are bouncing and so on. So, that can affect it a little bit. In fact, it will, in terms of our observations, not so much of the are we ready to go?

MODERATOR: Martin? Can you hear us?

MARTIN KAYMER: Hello?

MODERATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, Martin Kaymer, our 2014 United States Open champion. Martin, thank you for joining us from San Francisco. You're addressing a crowd of more than 200 reporters and golf officials from around the country and around the region. Just to get started, talking about the upcoming U.S. Open at Chambers Bay, how much thought have you been able to give to this defense on a very different golf course than the one on which you dominated almost a year ago?

MARTIN KAYMER: Well, the thing is, I haven't really been to Chambers Bay yet, so I don't it's very difficult to talk about it. I heard some stories about it. I met with Robert Trent Jones at the Masters briefly and we talked a little bit about it. He was involved there a lot. So, yeah, I guess that it looks very similar to Whistling Straits, which is quite nice. Obviously I like those kinds of golf courses.

MODERATOR: Now let's take some questions from our audience for Martin. Anyone?

Q. Martin, Mike Davis talked about the fact that if you don't spend an adequate enough time on this golf course you're basically not going to be successful. Considering this is a golf course you haven't seen before, how much time will you and your caddie spend and will it be more than you would normally spend at a Major venue?

MARTIN KAYMER: That's a good possibility that we're going to go there a little bit earlier. Maybe on Saturday or Sunday the weekend before. I haven't planned for it really yet. There are a lot of other big tournaments coming up in a week like this, for example, the championship where I'm defending next week. So a lot of things to think about that, first of all. And then you, obviously, I think it's always good if you go there the weekend before it, because there are no spectators yet, you usually have the golf course yourself, so you can really get a lot of good stuff in, a lot of good work in. So that is my, what I plan in my mind now. I haven't talked to my caddie yet about it, but something like this we're going to do.

Q. How long do you spend then studying what the course looks like before, before you get here? Do you look at every hole and the undulations and what our weather is going to do and all that? How much investment of time will you spend?

MARTIN KAYMER: Well even though I'm German, I'm not that much into it. (Laughter.) You know, I'll see it when I get there. But obviously I got to look at past tournaments that have been played there. I will look on the Internet how the shape of the holes are going to look like. What I said, I met with Robert Trent Jones there at the Masters and we, and he gave me a few tips already. But I'm not too much into it before. I'm only kind of person, I go there, I create a feel for it, and then maybe I walk nine holes or walk 18 holes, maybe the day before the tournament. It really depends on the course. But I'm not too much into that stuff trying to figure out the golf course before I even get there.

MODERATOR: Martin, I want to ask, you have an advantage over other players in the field, in that you've won two Major Championships. In other words, you know how to handle Major Championship pressure.

MARTIN KAYMER: Yes, yes, I do, which is quite nice. Obviously, if you win one major, it's almost like a career goal, but to win two is it's a proof to yourself that you can do it again. Obviously there are a few are more other tournaments I would like to win in my career, but I started off well, under the age of 30, and they say the best time of your career is coming up now. So I'm excited about that.

Q. What have you heard about the course?

MARTIN KAYMER: Excuse me?

Q. What have you heard about the course?

MARTIN KAYMER: I heard about the course that it's very similar to Whistling Straits. Especially the sides. It's a links golf course, going to play very fast. Some tee shots there are quite downhill. A little up slope. So apparently around the greens you can, you really have to know the falloffs around the greens. So I think it's going to be one of those tournaments again which is similar to Pinehurst where you're going to have a lot of run office around the greens where you can maybe putt or do those bump and runs. But yeah, that's it pretty much. What I said earlier, I'm not asking too many questions about Chambers Bay until I get there. There are a lot of tournaments that we play before that. But when I get there, my full focus will be on Chambers Bay, obviously.

Q. Was there anything Mr. Jones told you that you said, wow, this is really going to come in handy, this information?

MARTIN KAYMER: Not yet. But hopefully we will have some time during the week that we can sit down and maybe go through a few holes. Obviously, if he has the possibility to talk to someone like this, it can be only an advantage for you.

MODERATOR: Before I forget, tell us about the state of the game you're bringing here in 49 days. How are you playing this year, what do you feel best about in your game?

MARTIN KAYMER: Right now it's very interesting time, because I practiced a lot in February and March, but it hasn't really played off at all. I'm still searching a little bit for that fine tuning, let's say, actually fine tune a little bit overall on my game. But I worked on my short game a lot right now and this will be a huge deal this week here in San Francisco when we play the Match Play. But overall, I feel really good about the season, especially about the major championship courses that we're going to play.

Chambers Bay looks really, really nice. Obviously I've been successful at Whistling Straits before. And then St. Andrews is my favorite golf course in the world. So, overall, it's going to be an exciting time. I just need to put a little bit more rest into my schedule and not always practice, practice, and play.

Q. Are you familiar with the Pacific Northwest at all? Have you been up in this part of the country?

MARTIN KAYMER: Sorry, again?

Q. Have you been in the Pacific Northwest? Have you been in or around Seattle?

MARTIN KAYMER: No, I haven't. So it's really going to be my first time.

Q. Since this is a links course, do you think the Europeans might have an advantage at Chambers Bay?

MARTIN KAYMER: Well, especially, yeah, I believe the people from Great Britain, I think it looks like a links golf course with really good weather. So, I think that that's going to be an advantage. Obviously there's always the trouble when you play in Great Britain, the weather can be anything. But the golf course looks similar, so I think that you should look out for the Brits.

MODERATOR: In deference to your schedule, we want to let you get back to not practicing too much, but before you do, our president Tom O'Toole would like to say a few words.

TOM O'TOOLE, JR: Martin, how are you. First of all, you've been a wonderful U.S. Open champion, you've served the U.S. Open and the USGA with great distinction, and we look forward to welcoming you back here in defense of your title. Thank you for the mantle you carried on behalf of the USGA. Look forward to seeing you.

MARTIN KAYMER: Absolutely. Thanks very much. Thanks for those words.

ADAM BARR: Thank you for joining us, Martin, we greatly appreciate it. See you in seven weeks.

MARTIN KAYMER: All right. Thank you. Bye bye. (Applause.)

MODERATOR: And now ladies and gentlemen, also in the spirit of being on schedule we want to take more questions but first I want to ask Mike Davis and then we rushed him out of here to get Martin on the screen, anything more to say about anymore points you want to make about the golf course before we take questions or are we all set.

MIKE DAVIS: No, we're fine.

MODERATOR: Very good. In that case we will continue with general questions, please. Any questions?

Q. How structured will practice rounds be for the audience? Is it formal or informal? How will that work? The practice rounds?

MIKE DAVIS: And what about the practice rounds?

Q. Just viewing. Is it, is it informal or are tee times set up with players?

MIKE DAVIS: Oh, okay. Sure. The players do sign up at player registration and having said that, that schedule often times changes. So, they may sign up with two players and then all of a sudden two other players or another player join them. Some of the players will play 18, some will play nine. Some will play something else. So the practice rounds do tend to be fairly informal. But there's a lot of golf out on that Monday through Wednesday. But you'll see, what we tend to see is the rounds are very long, the players aren't just playing one ball, they often times get around a green and they will hit extra putts, go from different locations and try to figure out where we're going to put hole locations and hit some short shots around the edges of the greens. So, it's fun to watch.

Q. The economic impact in the area down the road, what kind of things should this area expect?

MIKE DAVIS: We have Reg Jones here for that.

REG JONES: Sure, a lot of the economic impact is really prior to the championship and then post championship. But based on the numbers that we have been able to go back through our past championships, we would expect that impact to be about 140 million dollars. And primarily that's driven by tourism with hotels, restaurants, travel, but then certainly prior to the championship with all the construction and preparations as well.

Q. So what do you see in the golf industry that may be impactful for the golf guys? The golf industry up in the northwest.

MIKE DAVIS: I think that one of the things with particularly a U.S. Open that these championships do is that we're not only providing an arena for the world's elite to compete, but these championships do inspire the recreational game. In some cases there are people that had never played golf that will come mere and now want to play golf. That's how I always tell the story; I really got inspired by the game of golf when my father took me to a couple U.S. Opens when I was very young. So, I think that, when we look at that, that's part of why we conduct these championships, to really help sustain and grow the game long term.

Q. I wanted to find out, are there any women's events scheduled or are the women waiting to see what happens here?

MIKE DAVIS: At Chambers Bay? Good question. To my knowledge we don't have a formal invitation in yet, although there has been some discussion. So you got to think, post U.S. Open that if the county had a good experience and KemperSports and there will be other decision makers that they have interests, we'll continue to talk. It's great to come to the Pacific Northwest and Tom mentioned it, Diana mentioned it, the enthusiasm here is just been spectacular. I think that's listen, guys, regular will tell you, it is hard to put on one-time events in an area. I mean, when you're a tour event or the Masters or whatever and you can put on the same event at the same venue, the same volunteers, the same venues, the same policemen, the same parking plan, you can get it right. If it's not right one year, you will get it right the next.

In our case, moving it around, it does challenge us, because we're trying to, in some cases, to guess how it's going to work. I mean, it's an educated guess, but on the positive side, but bringing this around to different communities exposes the world to some of the great golf courses, but it also, it inspires golf in a given area. So I think that we're willing to take some of those, the shortfalls and maybe how we conduct the event just because it is good for the game of golf.

TOM O'TOOLE JR: I would just add to that, to support the county and in their vision, when we come to a place for the first time, we're not encouraging them to look past this. We're encouraging them to put their efforts into this. Then we'll have plenty of time for post mortem. So in defense of them, they haven't not volunteered for us to come back, we of said let's focus on this championship, let's knock this out of the park and then we'll talk, as Mike said, in a post mortem, in an assessment of however they want it, not just what happened on the golf course, but collectively operationally. So to defend the county, they would, they haven't had their arms close to their vest, that's for sure.

PAT MCCARTHY: Let me say this we want this to be the gift that keeps on giving. (Laughter.) So we anticipate that we're going to have a fabulous event and let me just say a little bit about Seattle and this is happening in Pierce County and our anchor for the county is the City of Tacoma, but the anchor for the State of Washington is the Emerald City, Seattle.

So we're ecstatic about having our entire region, the entire Puget Sound being engaged in this fabulous event and it will be down here in Pierce County.And we look forward to rolling out the red carpet for all of our folks and our brothers and sisters up north. So this is going to be a fabulous event, we're excited that things are going to be happening in Seattle. We know that people will mention Seattle and I always tell my friends in University Place, don't get your self too uptight when they mention Seattle or throw in a fish here at Pike Place Market, because that will happen. And remember it is Sea Tac, which means Seattle and Tacoma. So we do comprise the majority of the folks in the State of Washington in this four-county region. So it's going to be terrific for all of us here in the region and we anticipate a great economic benefit for the county, for the region and for the State of Washington.

MODERATOR: Going back to the original question before, you fans of women's golf that live here in the northwest, you also have the U.S. Women's Amateur Four Ball, the first ever, at Bandon Dunes, as Mike mentioned, in southwest Oregon in two weeks. And then the U.S. Women's Amateur at Portland Golf Club in August. So there's plenty of outstanding women's golf in USGA championships coming to the northwest in this just this year and we're very glad to be here.

Q. Mike, you noted it's a unique venue it's a stern test, I'm curious why the added element of the uneven teeing grounds?

MIKE DAVIS: It's interesting, if you go way back in time, that was part of the game of golf. That's how it was played many years ago. One of the things we really tried to do is look at what the architect wanted to, how he wanted or they wanted the golf course to play. And so if you're at Pebble Beach, you want the wind, the firmness, the ocean to come into play. If you're at Pinehurst the dome greens the sandy wire grass areas. Oakmont next year the lightning fast putting greens and the deep bunkers. In the case of Chambers Bay, that's really what Bob and Bruce wanted to see happen.

And it's fascinating, in fact, in my walk yesterday with Greg Norman and Tom Weiskopf and a couple others from Fox Sports, we talked about that. And those two both, they're major champions, they're architects, they loved the idea. And it's all about listen, it's no different than when you hit your ball down the middle of the fairway, sometimes you might get in a divot. That's part of the game and that we feel that there's nothing that's sacred saying you have to have a perfectly flat lie on the teeing ground. It's not the way the game used to be played. So I think it's actually an innovative, neat idea and, listen, we're not going to be putting tee markers on a slope that's six, eight, 10 degree slope, but instead of, generally speaking, architects will build a teeing ground with maybe a half to one percent slope, just so when it rains, it's surface drainage but, and you really generally can't feel that much with your feet.

But all of a sudden if you're off a two, three percent slope, you start to feel that. You get a little hook lie. And it's intriguing. So we won't go over board with it, but I think that we will do a little bit and embrace that.

Q. What's your estimate on how long the rounds will take to play?

MIKE DAVIS: They are going to it's interesting, Jeff Hall and John Bodenhamer, who really are the people that oversee the conduct from a staff standpoint inside the ropes, addressed this yesterday with some of the Fox Sports people and, you know, this will take longer to play this course. Period. The reason is, it just takes longer to walk it. It's a longer distance to walk, there's some uphill holes. The sternness of the test certainly comes into play. So I think that relative to other U.S. Opens they have added maybe, guys, what? 10, 12 minutes, something like that on to the par time.

JEFF HALL: Still working through that, but we can expect it to be a longer-playing Open.

MIKE DAVIS: So Jeff those of you in the back we do expect it to be playing, a longer playing. But I will also say that the USGA, our Championship Committee as well as our staff have really worked hard the last couple of years and kind of our whole place pace of pay awareness campaign, not only for championships, but our recreational game. And it's amazing through some of the some really good work, some analysis we have gotten some engineers involved we have taken some time off how long it takes to play in our championships, which is great. It's made the, if you're playing in a championship, a better experience too.

Q. Curious, after the success of last year you had a wonderful tournament to watch you had very worthy winner. Did that influence your decision at all? Does that give you pause to think well do we need the rough at Chambers Bay or had you long before taking the decision to have rough here?'

MIKE DAVIS: Very good question. So last year, you think back, we have had three U.S. Opens at Pinehurst, 1999, 2005 and last year. And the first two U.S. Opens we had Bermuda grass rough. And then, compared to last year, we had Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw did some wonderful restoration work there, really brought it back it the way Donald Ross wanted it. And what was, what Donald Ross had, you know, 80, a hundred years ago, were sandy, wire grass areas without Bermuda rough.

It played wonderful for the U.S. Open. We much prefer how that played relative to how it played with Bermuda grass rough. In the case this year, you think about the test of golf and accuracy and it playing kind of like a links course and thinking in your mind like a British Open course, we think some rough is appropriate. We think that we still want to test accuracy off the teeing ground. And this won't be the thick bluegrass, ryegrass, Bermuda grass rough that you see a lot of places, hopefully, when it's all said and done. We do plan to graduate it. But so we want, if a player misses in the rough close in, that you're going to get a little grass between the ball and the club head, which will take away from the distance control, but allow the player to try to play towards the green. That's the intent. Now, it won't necessarily happen a hundred percent of the time, but that's the intent. We just felt that to have it all closely mown fairway for what we were trying to do just didn't quite work for at least a U.S. Open.

Q. When you guys were at Pebble Beach you timed the tee times on Saturday and Sunday to end prime time on East Coast. Is that still the plan here, that you'll have those the leaders kind of wrapping up around 7 or 8 o'clock local time here?

MIKE DAVIS: That's exactly right. So, on Saturday, Sunday, we do plan, I believe, a 7 p.m. local finish, which back east is a 10 p.m. finish. So, people in the United States love it. I'm not sure the Europeans love it so much. But it's really good and I think our partners with Fox are excited about it. When we were with NBC it worked out beautifully that way and it just allowed more people to view the U.S. Open, which, at the end of the day, is a great thing. It's exposing more people to the game of golf and that's certainly something that we want to see happen.

MODERATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, we'll wrap it up with at this point. I would like to thank you all for attending for your excellent questions and your patience while we moved the schedule around a bit. On behalf of all my colleagues at the USGA, our partners at Fox and our good friends and helpers here at Pierce County and the entire region. Thank you very much. We can't wait for the next 49 days to go by. Thank you.

The transcript for the above interview is courtesy of ASAP Sports.

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