By Ishwar Achanta
In utopian circumstances, Golf courses would have no hazards, bunkers, cruel slopes on greens, contours on fairways that give you vertigo and where the hole would be 8 inches in diameter.
If you got excited reading this, slow down because in Golf the imperfections of nature appear to manifest itself in a more evident fashion.
Billy Horschel lost respect for the USGA, Henrik Stenson said that the greens were like putting on broccoli to which Rory Mcllroy added that it was more like cauliflower and the great Gary Player famously said “The man who designed this golf course had to have had one leg shorter than the other. It’s hard to believe you see a man miss the green by one yard and the ball ends up 50 yards down in the rough”.
With all due respect to these great gents, I completely disagree. I was at Chambers Bay, inside the ropes, up close and personal refereeing my 9th major and 2nd U.S Open and have come away with an even greater respect for this game, after 41 years of playing it.
True Chambers Bay may not have been the best venue for onsite spectators but tell that to 34.9 Million viewers on TV and they are unlikely to give a tuppence!
That Robert Trent Jones’s singularly different design out of the best who bid, was chosen to create a golf course out of a sand and gravel mine is a testimony to Pierce County’s commitment to building a quality public course and to the USGA’s far sightedness in awarding the 2010 Men’s Amateur and the 2015 U.S Open, to this course.
FESCUE TO THE RESCUE
Fescue is a fine grass with a thin, round blade that grows in one direction. The maritime climate and the walking only requirements for the course decided the use of this grass from tee to green, which players are not accustomed to. Since the ball skids off this grass, aerial shots would have that ting of uncertainty for the bounce, which would obviously affect club and shot selection and the whole strategy of the player.
The legendary Greg Norman, who was one of the contenders to design this course, played it several times after it was built and he had nothing but the highest praise for the course and fescue. He talked about the different sound of the club striking the ball, the spin on it, the way chips and pitches behave and the ball rolling more than expected. He said “The player who wins will also surely get a bad bounce along the way and how he reacts to it will determine whether he earns the U.S Open Trophy at the end”.
POA ANNUA EFFECT
I was assigned to groups that had Zach Johnson, the 2007 Master’s Champion, Sam Saunders (grandson of the great Arnold Palmer) Thomas Aiken of South Africa, Danny Lee of New Zealand, Daniel Summerhays, George Macneill & Cameron Tringale of the U.S Masahiro Kawamura of Japan and American amateur Brian Campbell.
If at all I heard any complaints, they were mostly directed at the uneven bounce on the greens brought about by the weed species Poa annua. Putts that otherwise looked like being made would get deviated by the poa that flowered or opened up as the heat got up.
That some of the world’s best professional golfers failed to make the cut is history. What the golfing world did not see was six American amateurs who made the cut out of 16 who qualified to play. They were: Beau Hossler, ranked 5th in the WAGR, Brian Campbell ranked 6 , Ollie Schniederjan, former nbr 1 now ranked 8th, Denny McCarthy, ranked 12th,Jack Maguire, ranked 20th and Nick Hardy, ranked 78.
On Day 4, I was assigned to Referee Thomas Aiken of South Africa and the amateur Brian Campbell. Brian shot a quality 68 which should have actually been a 66. That he made the course look easy by his meticulous placement of the ball is a lesson that many of the professionals should learn. He finished an overall 27th, a very creditable performance to win the low amateur medal.
That Summerhayes was for a while on top of the leaderboard at 5 under, in round 2 , that ended at 3 under thanks only to the Humpback, is an affirmation that not all the 156 players who started had issues with Chambers Bay.
THE HUMPBACK
Gary Player’s comment possibly stemmed from the 508-yard, par 4, 7th, the toughest hole on this course. This hole, aptly named, required a long tee shot (290 +) with a left to right shape over bunkers to find the fairway, followed by an uphill approach with a mid to long iron protected by a false front. It is this front that caught those without enough club and brought the ball back 50 yards into the rough. Too bad if these players did not have precise distance control.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
With traditional playing surfaces featuring grass varieties that allow for a sharp contrast of margins between the fairway and the green, fine fescue from tee to green does not allow even the alteration of mowing heights as an option to differentiate when the fairway ends and the green begins.
The USGA solved this by defining the putting surface with small dots of white paint. Expecting several rulings on this front, all of us referees were pleased that this was never the issue; the players sorted this out themselves.
THE BEAUTY OF PUGET SOUND
With a railroad track between the course and the Sound, this was undoubtedly one the prettiest locales. Watching 4000 HP locos hauling mile long freight trains with Fox Island in the background, sailboats and skiers, not to forget Fox Sport’s Drone buzzing over the water, made this experience, a one-of-a kind for me.
Chambers Bay was a test that separated the men from the boys, sent the whiners’ home, a heart break for Dustin Johnson and produced a great Champion in Jordan Spieth.
Feature Image Credit: (Copyright USGA/Steven Gibbons)
