[Pete_Pittock]

Ed,
Puget Sound is protected from the wind Check out Galloping Gertie, which was about five miles north of the property. As an aside, the state insured it, but the agent pocketed the payments.

[ed_getka]

Ed,
Puget Sound is protected from the wind Check out Galloping Gertie, which was about five miles north of the property. As an aside, the state insured it, but the agent pocketed the payments.

So which is it? Is the course shielded from the winds that led to GG or not? I've never been up there, but I assume from all the sailboats I've seen in pix that there must be some wind up there.

[Bill_McBride]

Today's coverage of the Amateur is the first I have seen of Chambers Bay, and I am really blown away by it!  Can't wait for next summer when I will be back in Oregon and hope to get there.

With all the slopes and fast conditions, it looks like playing a giant pinball machine!  Great match play venue, can't imagine playing medal play there!   

[Adrian_Stiff]

Bill- While I like the look I am not convinced about this as a golf course. Your comment re giant pinball machine is pretty accurate, but is that good? I am watching the 12th green and it just looks way over the top. Ok the set up might be different for normal play but I think many golfers will be taking 4 shots from 100yards and for most that wont actually be fun. How playable is this course? To me this course does not replicate UK links golf at all.

[Alister Matheson]

Bill- While I like the look I am not convinced about this as a golf course. Your comment re giant pinball machine is pretty accurate, but is that good? I am watching the 12th green and it just looks way over the top. Ok the set up might be different for normal play but I think many golfers will be taking 4 shots from 100yards and for most that wont actually be fun. How playable is this course? To me this course does not replicate UK links golf at all.

Adrian,
          I think you are correct in stating many golfers will take 4 shots from 100 yards ! unless they learn the ground route i have seen two great shots hit with lob wedges in the last 20 minutes when the bump and run was ON ! but not many golfers are able to pull them shots off .

Why should this course replicate uk links golf ? it simply looks to me like a fantastic  fast and firm US venue with fescue !

[Bill_McBride]

Bill- While I like the look I am not convinced about this as a golf course. Your comment re giant pinball machine is pretty accurate, but is that good? I am watching the 12th green and it just looks way over the top. Ok the set up might be different for normal play but I think many golfers will be taking 4 shots from 100yards and for most that wont actually be fun. How playable is this course? To me this course does not replicate UK links golf at all.

I haven't been to Cruden Bay or some of the NW Ireland courses, but this Chambers Bay course makes me think of them.

Your thoughts above are the basis of my comment about a match play venue.  The US Open there should be amusing, at least to everybody but the competitors!

[Adrian_Stiff]

No it does not have to replicate UK links. They are slagging it off on Sky TV.

[Richard Choi]

12th green is pretty wild because it is only 300 yards. Most people are going to get to the green (or pretty near it) off the drive. The whole fun of the hole is the wild movements on the green which means that even if you are on the green, an eagle or birdie is not guaranteed.

It is s pretty fun hole.

[Tom Johnston]

   
    If you were going to spend the day spectating at Chambers what one or two places would you go? My choices are at #10 green atop the left dune, or at the 12th green. 12 would probably win out with necessaries and concessions.

Pete - we liked the right dune by the #10 green...  Also above the 6th green, left side.

[RJ_Daley]

I'm a day behind and watching the quater finals now, a mild and not windy day.  So, we've seen this course in various conditions. How anyone can 'slag ' this course off, because it isn't authentic links is just being haughty in my view.  Of course it isn't real links!  It is built upon a gravel-sand mine!!! 

But, how does it play relative to 'links style' golf?  Well, I'm not an expert, and haven't even been to the old sod in GB&I.  But, I watched enough of it over the years at the British.  This course is playing more like a links than several of the links I've seen during the odd or infrequent soft conditions of some of the B.Os.  The need to understand the ground contours, and green surround processes (call it pinball machine if you like) seems to me to be exactly what links golf is all about.  Firm and fast with fescue turf, and wide surrounds, some blindness by faux dunes, and several carry or go optionally around and give up yardage placed bunkers seems like links to me.  Frankly, I would love to play CB 50 times over once at Whistling Straits  The creativity these excellent ams are demonstrating of shot making and alternate options of how to play holes at CB is way more entertaining than the demanding hit it here or else target golf we actually saw at WS a week ago.

That this course is designed, routed and built upon a scraggly sand mine, needing plenty of sub surface shaping, and stripping and storing the top sand before properly redistributing and shaping the playing field is a great golf course architectural effort in my opinion.  This seems to me to be exactly what so many long time GCA.com participants have been pining for for years in modern golf design.  The gamble to go with fescue and the extraordingary effort it is taking to grow it in, is gutsy and a very respectable job that is being done to find the right "maintenence meld".  And, to have this be owned by a municipality, where you and I can play without grovelling or sucking in favors, like most USGA venues etc., is all the more admirable. 

It seems to me that "slagging" this golf course is a diservice and anethma to all that GCA.com has been about over the years.  I haven't enjoyed a US Am as fun to watch since Merion a few years ago.  Gary Koch is doing a very good job of describing and analysing the course, IMHO.

[RJ_Daley]

BTW, the golf course at CB has so much local, unique character, that you can't design that so much as just run with it as an architect, I think.  While a hole like 15 doesn't play like a links in the huge drop shot down hill nature, the ability to set it up from 246 down to 120 in that totally unique setting with the lone tree, the train often going by, and the sound behind is priceless visual allure.  The same can be said of 17, even though the actual setting is the same, yet quite different in playing presentation shot requirement. 

[Garland Bayley]

Ed,
Puget Sound is protected from the wind Check out Galloping Gertie, which was about five miles north of the property. As an aside, the state insured it, but the agent pocketed the payments.

So which is it? Is the course shielded from the winds that led to GG or not? I've never been up there, but I assume from all the sailboats I've seen in pix that there must be some wind up there.

It was a weather front moving through. You know, a severe storm. As I said, they happen much more often in the winter.

[Jordan Wall]

I made it out to Chambers today, wow was that fun!

The golf course looked as good as I have ever seen it.  The fairways were rolling, the greens were rolling, and in order to get to many of the pins you had to hit at slopes away from the hole and let the ball funnel down.  Jay Blasi perhaps said it best, along the lines of 'they can hit a perfect shot but pick the wrong shot to hit, and have a terrible result'.  This is true as players could not land the ball at the hole and keep it there.  The playing conditions were perfect.

An hit one of the best shots I have ever personally seen on a course set up so tough.  On 11, he hit a 50 yard pitch up the hill that two took one bounce and stopped, inches away.  In person, it didn't look like he could get it within twenty feet; pure magic.

Chambers looks better brown.  It fits the golf course more.  It blends in with the native fescue, and allows the course to play firm and fast.  So on top of enlightening the playing conditions, it also looks better, a big plus to an already splendid course.

One fature I really enjoyed today was the short par-4 5th, using the small green to the left of the hole.  In the the second match, Uhlein put it forty feet right of the hole with his drive and had no chance to get it close.  Just goes to show, even when you're right next to the hole, it still might not be the best play.  I thought the fifth today was wonderfully conceived.

For all you Chambers Bay haters out there, all I gotta say is that if you haven't seen the course, hush.  It's a thing of beauty and is proving to be a great course for the Am.  The design is brilliant and players are really having to think about their shots.  The course is looking and playing great, providing drama along the way.  What could be better?

[Adam Clayman]

I'm not reading any hate. What I do feel is that there are certain aspects of the design and construction that could've been better.
These aspects do not ruin anything. They just are not as thoughtful as they could've been. Precluding CB from entering the great category.

[Jud_T]

I have to admit I'm pretty intrigued by the course from watching the Am.  The question is why would I travel all the way there instead of just going back to Bandon?  Could one make a good golf trip out of it without too much additional road travel?  How far is Wine Vally from CB?

[Sean Leary]

Wine Valley is about 4 hours from CB. Complete opposite sides of the state.

The experience of CB is not close to that of Bandon, and since there isn't anything nearby worth making a trip for, its hard to recommend it over another trip to Bandon.

[Adrian_Stiff]

I'm not reading any hate. What I do feel is that there are certain aspects of the design and construction that could've been better.
These aspects do not ruin anything. They just are not as thoughtful as they could've been. Precluding CB from entering the great category.

Adam I am pretty much in your camp on this one.... from my TV seat and watching certain ball reactions I feel is kinda 75% good 25% not so good. With a different eye perhaps it could be 100%.
Watching someone have to hole a 40 footer to tie and force a play off and the putt misses the green wide is kinda weird. I feel the use of the slopes to roll the back back into the segment is overdone as well. I don't think you find this on the old fashioned links as often although perhaps that is what will give CB is uniqueness. I feel that the pro's will hate this course. On the UK TV last night they remarked its on steroids and all it needs is a windmill. That aside I think a lot of it is good. What do the other archies think? What are the greens stimping for the US-AM?

[Mike Benham]

The fescue surface looks very good, but I can't believe they dropped the quarterfinal coverage with 3 matches 1-up!

NBC is a business, they only are showing the Amateur because the USGA requires it as part of the US Open package.

They are using a minimum of equipment by evidence of only showing 3 matches over 6 or 7 holes and even with that, it is likely this is a money losing event for them.

With this running opposite of the Barclays, it is likely #2 in the golf market on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon ...

Re-runs of some extreme sport or BMX or skate competition is likely to draw higher ratings ...

[Dean Stokes]

I'm not reading any hate. What I do feel is that there are certain aspects of the design and construction that could've been better.
These aspects do not ruin anything. They just are not as thoughtful as they could've been. Precluding CB from entering the great category.

Adam I am pretty much in your camp on this one.... from my TV seat and watching certain ball reactions I feel is kinda 75% good 25% not so good. With a different eye perhaps it could be 100%.
Watching someone have to hole a 40 footer to tie and force a play off and the putt misses the green wide is kinda weird. I feel the use of the slopes to roll the back back into the segment is overdone as well. I don't think you find this on the old fashioned links as often although perhaps that is what will give CB is uniqueness. I feel that the pro's will hate this course. On the UK TV last night they remarked its on steroids and all it needs is a windmill. That aside I think a lot of it is good. What do the other archies think? What are the greens stimping for the US-AM?

I almost have to go along with the view of UK tv on the 'windmill' aspect. I have never been there so I am not going to say too much but I got bored very quickly the other night watching it. The green complexes reminded me of a a big pinball machine. The ball just bouncing in and around off the sides. Far too many pins seemed to be in bowls where as long as you missed the pin on the correct side you were going to end up close. The condition of the course looks great, brown and fast but when I watched a player chip from 10 yards off the green and he had to aim away from the green to get it close........that was me done.

[Mike Benham]

Watching someone have to hole a 40 footer to tie and force a play off and the putt misses the green wide is kinda weird.

They are amateurs, not professionals ...

I feel that the pro's will hate this course.

Most pro's hate any course that they can't throw darts on, have the ball land and stop where they want ...  

And since when did this group care about what the Pro's think?

I feel the use of the slopes to roll the back back into the segment is overdone as well.   I don't think you find this on the old fashioned links as often although perhaps that is what will give CB is uniqueness. I feel that the pro's will hate this course. On the UK TV last night they remarked its on steroids and all it needs is a windmill.

For comparison purposes, name a true links that has the elevation change and hillocks that CB has?

Aren't the slopes that roll the ball back into the segment evident in almost every green at Ballyneal and Sand Hills?

[Terry Lavin]

Don't get all defensive up there in the Pac Northwest!  The course is nothing but intriguing on television from my perch in the Midwest.  It's a little hard to tell from television whether the course is pure fun or pure guesswork and goofy bounces, but it sure looks like it's worth the trip.  Just the scale of the place is somewhat awe inspiring.  It does seem like there are some pretty punitive results from some fairly innocent looking shots, which causes me to wonder whether the course would reward luck over skill in too many areas.  The current conditioning is disappointing, but to be expected, given the type of grass and the time of the year, but I'm quite sure that the USGA agronomy team will work overtime to make sure that it's in great shape for the open.  Looks like a winner to me.

[Tim Bert]

I have to admit I'm pretty intrigued by the course from watching the Am.  The question is why would I travel all the way there instead of just going back to Bandon?  Could one make a good golf trip out of it without too much additional road travel?  How far is Wine Vally from CB?

Jud - as a multiple cross-country trip to play Bandon consumer, I can tell you that Chambers is worth a trip. We did is this May "on our way" to Bandon. We flew into Sea-Tac instead of Portland. Then we drove to Bandon and played four days of golf there. To a man, no one regretted the side trip. We all agreed we aren't going to make a habit of adding this long of a diversion to our trips to Bandon, but we all agreed that we would like to return to Chambers at some point. I wouldnt do it instead of Bandon, but if i am ever going to be in the Seattle area i am going to make an effort to get back.  I would also consider repeating the Chambers side-trip 1 out of every 3 trips to Bandon, just not up for the drive every time.  It is a really enjoyable course.

One added benefit of the long drive down to Bandon is that it gives your legs time to recover from the difficult walk.  

[Garland Bayley]

...On the UK TV last night they remarked its on steroids and all it needs is a windmill....

The Brits are just jealous they don't have any courses with 7 acre  bunkers. 

[Garland Bayley]

... The current conditioning is disappointing, but to be expected, given the type of grass and the time of the year, but I'm quite sure that the USGA agronomy team will work overtime to make sure that it's in great shape for the open.  ...

Can't imagine what this means unless you want ANGC. It has been almost unanimous praise for the fast and firm conditioning, until this little comment.

[Terry Lavin]

... The current conditioning is disappointing, but to be expected, given the type of grass and the time of the year, but I'm quite sure that the USGA agronomy team will work overtime to make sure that it's in great shape for the open.  ...

Can't imagine what this means unless you want ANGC. It has been almost unanimous praise for the fast and firm conditioning, until this little comment.

Nope, I'm talking about the big chunks of green where they had to replant sod.  The F&F looks great to moi, but I'm not sure if conditions in June will resemble those of August in that department.

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