9 / 26
09
E
very golf course project comes
with a remit—a program for
development, against which
the success or failure of the resulting
design will be measured. At Chambers
Bay in the Tacoma suburb of University
Place, Washington, the expectation
placed in the hands of golf course
architect Robert Trent Jones Jr., ASGCA
Past President, and his partner and
lead project architect, Bruce Charlton,
ASGCA Past President, was far more
ambitious than normal.
The visionary for the municipal
undertaking, Pierce County executive
John Ladenburg, was simple, clear and
direct in his mandate to the design
team: take an abandoned, 930-acre
gravel quarry and convert its post-
industrial detritus into a stirring
links-style golf course and public park
that would be an engine for regional
tourism development and would hold
the Pacific Northwest’s first-ever U.S.
Open. To industry observers, that
mandate 15 years ago crossed the line
of ambition and entered the realm of
delusion. And yet here we are, on the
verge of that U.S. Open and the golf
course is doing all it was supposed to
do—and more.
Not without some major hurdles.
Converting the country’s single
Photo: Copyright USGA/John Mummert