14 / 26
14
|
By Design
At Chambers Bay that didn’t come
from mechanical damage so much
as from the wear and tear under foot
from 35,000+ plus rounds, much of
it in winter time when locals took
advantage of favorable rates. The
wear and tear was compounded by
caddies—an additional two-to-four
pairs of footsteps per foursome for
the 10 percent of rounds where
players opted for bag toters. There
was the additional burden of
approach and exit patterns around
some greens that tended on occasion
to funnel traffic through narrow
passages—whether in defile-like
form, through the 10th hole, or on
some greens where the only path
to the next tee was made narrow by
steep falloffs to each side. Between
traffic and weather, the result was
some discernible decline in turf
conditions heading into the spring.
Soon after opening, it was clear that
high-impact areas would need some
reworking. A few areas had to be
massaged and green exits expanded.
But the major course edits would
await the 2010 U.S. Amateur, when
USGA officials would see how the
course played under championship
conditions—a prelude to the U.S.
Open five years later.
August isn’t June, and parched
conditions of the U.S. Amateur
(August) are far more severe in
firmness and speed than the
likely conditions of a U.S. Open
(June). But it was clear from play
on Chambers Bay during the 2010
Amateur that a few slopes had
to be reworked. On a golf course
that played extreme in its nearly
dormant, dry, pinball wizard speed
conditions, approach shots onto the
first green were running off the left
side and tumbling way away. And
some shots hit to the uphill, seventh
green (or back onto it from behind)
were literally running down off the
front and winding 100-150 yards
away. More areas for spectator traffic
would also be needed on course.
Davis, with an eye towards the U.S.
Open, was intent upon creating an
almost unparalleled degree of set
up flexibility.
New teeing grounds on the first
and 18th holes would allow these
holes, running side-by-side in
opposite directions, to be set up
variously as a par-4 or as a par-5 on
alternate days. The downhill par-3
15th hole got teeing grounds that
enabled it to play from 123-to-246
yards. A new way-back tee on the
downhill par-4 14th hole would
enable it to play 546 yards—and
from the highest point on the golf
course looking out onto Puget
Sound. And if the wind, prevailing
out of the southwest, should prove
too much for the 224-yard, par-
3 ninth hole on a tee shot that
dropped 100-feet to the green,
Davis wanted the flexibility to play
from an alternate platform aligned
90-degrees to the east that would be
both more reasonable for play and
more accessible to spectators.
Most of the this work, undertaken
in 2012-13, was the kind of tweaking
that is standard in the run-up to
any U.S. Open—though the degree
of set-up flexibility it facilitated
was more than usual. Along the
way, USGA officials, working with
KemperSports and Pierce County
officials, also wanted to guarantee
better turf quality, and that required
CHAMBERS BAY
A crucial determination was to go with
links-style fescue
grasses that would
emulate a traditional seaside layout