Maltby says CB needs "modifications", what would you suggest?

[Richard Choi]

I overheard Roger Maltby today on the course when someone asked him how he liked the course.

His answer in verbatim was:

"It's... different. They would have to make some... modifications before the US Open."

Clearly, no CB love is coming from Maltby

If I had to guess, Roger probably would prefer Chambers Bay to have bent grass greens like Whistling Straits and played more like that course during the PGA (although that would be a travesty).

Now that many of you have seen the course on TV and how it played, do you think CB needs some modifications before hosting US Open? What would you do if you were in charge?

[Dan Herrmann]

Richard,
How do you think it'll play in June?

When I lived in Portland, every June was amazingly rainy and cool.  I'm thinking that CB's sandy soil will handle the rain well, but I really don't know.

[Richard Choi]

I think it will. I have yet to see standing water on the course during any time of the year. And if you lived in NW, you know how rare that is. The sand base is really deep and really drains well. I believe they can get the course to play just like it did today in June. But I do suspect that it will look greener in June.

[Phil McDade]

Richard:

None. Maltbie, of course, is an old Tour pro, and probably is channeling their complaints already.

I thought the course played great, from what I saw on TV. But, to the extent that someone like Uihlien (a very good amateur, but not at the level of US Open caliber golfer) really went after it and had a lot of birdies (which, he seemed to), perhaps some lengthening and mainly amped up green speeds are in order. As you've mentioned previously, rough will likely be thicker in June. But as far as the course itself and its design, I wouldn't change anything. I like golfers having to turn their backs to the hole to play shots into greens.

[Greg Tallman]

Richard:

None. Maltbie, of course, is an old Tour pro, and probably is channeling their complaints already.

Who is more qualified than a a guy who has done nothing in his life but travel and play golf at a high level to comment on such things?

Those of us who read GCA on a daily basis?

Really?

Do you lump Ben Crenshaw into the "old Tour pro" crowd?

[Richard Choi]

In fairness to Roger, if I was in charge, I would change a few things.

- I would move the #9 tee box from where it is now to below 8th fairway where a practice greens are located right now. This would make this more of an uphill par 3, which would add to variety and the green looks absolutely gorgeous from that angle.

- I would add a higher landing zone left and above where the current fairway is for #12. As it is, this is a driver only hole as lay up does not buy you anything. It would be nice to have a higher and wider landing area that gives you at least little better view to the green so that a layup is a real choice.

[Don_Mahaffey]

Please tell me when the USGA didn't modify a course in the years prior to the open.

[Phil McDade]

Greg:

I respect Maltbie; he likes one of my favorite courses here in Wisconsin:

http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,36792.0/

But Tour golfers, as has been well documented elsewhere, can be whiners. They are (generalizing here, to make a point) like Goldilocks when it comes to their courses -- everything has to be just so, and just right.

I'm speculating about Maltbie, of course, but I'm guessing he thinks the pros will view CBay (based on what was observed this week) as:

-- arbitrary;
-- too firm (presuming it plays close to what it did this past week);
-- confusing;
-- whimsical, in a bad way;
-- a course subject to non-linear outcomes.

Since you bring up a straw man in the form of Crenshaw to make your argument, I'll use a similar one. Benhard Langer was said to have once asked for yardage to a pin during the 1991 Ryder Cup. When told it was 150 from the sprinkler head cover, Langer replied:
'Is that  from the front of the sprinkler head or the back of it?'

Many, many pros are like Langer (maybe not that bad, but of a similar vein). They make a living out of knowing they can hit a 7-iron 172 yards (or whatever pros hit 7-irons these days). Not 170 yards, or 175 yards, or 173 yards, but 172 yards.

I think, if CBay can play similarly to what it did this week, that the course will confound many of them. I personally think that's a good thing. But many will whine about it.

[Pete_Pittock]

In June the high rough will be more lush than we saw. Despite fairway width, their speed and slope will carom balls into bad lies. I can see a mid-cut of rough. They really experimented with hole length at the Am, expect much less elasticity in 2015.
If there are changes I could see them on #7 around the green and on the hillside left of 9. If they were going to rebuild/reshape greens I think #s 1,7, 9 and 18 are candidates.  

I think pace of play will be a real issue on Friday and Saturday in the US Open and they will neuter by hole locations or recontouring.
Outside of Jacobsen and Maltbie (pls correct title) I wonder if any Champions tour or regular tour players were around this week.

[Greg Tallman]

Greg:

I respect Maltbie; he likes one of my favorite courses here in Wisconsin:

http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,36792.0/

But Tour golfers, as has been well documented elsewhere, can be whiners. They are (generalizing here, to make a point) like Goldilocks when it comes to their courses -- everything has to be just so, and just right.

I'm speculating about Maltbie, of course, but I'm guessing he thinks the pros will view CBay (based on what was observed this week) as:

-- arbitrary;
-- too firm (presuming it plays close to what it did this past week);
-- confusing;
-- whimsical, in a bad way;
-- a course subject to non-linear outcomes.

Since you bring up a straw man in the form of Crenshaw to make your argument, I'll use a similar one. Benhard Langer was said to have once asked for yardage to a pin during the 1991 Ryder Cup. When told it was 150 from the sprinkler head cover, Langer replied:
'Is that  from the front of the sprinkler head or the back of it?'

Many, many pros are like Langer (maybe not that bad, but of a similar vein). They make a living out of knowing they can hit a 7-iron 172 yards (or whatever pros hit 7-irons these days). Not 170 yards, or 175 yards, or 173 yards, but 172 yards.

I think, if CBay can play similarly to what it did this week, that the course will confound many of them. I personally think that's a good thing. But many will whine about it.

Phil, I do not disagree but just grow tired of many of the wild generalizations that pervade this site from day to day, topic to topic.

With regard to whatthe Tour pros "expect" I would agree and the best way to "protect par" would be to stop the "standards of play" and the Tour influencing the condition ing of a golf course or, if they must, do so in a random way... greens roll at 9 this week, 11 next, 13 a couple of weeks later... mix it up. THrouw tees where they have never practiced from.

The Langer tidbit is equally hilarious and maddening. Unfortunately my 7 iron can be anywhere from 145 to 170 all the while trying to hit it 155 which makes scoring rather difficult.

[Richard Choi]

Phil, a great line about Langer He just romped at the Champions Tour even here in Seattle! And exact yardages come in handy at TPC Snoqualmie.

Looks like Mike Davis have following changes in mind...

But as an example, we had no idea the first green would run the areas just short of that as fast as it did.  And it's, again, something that you just couldn't see before you had it set up that way, and probably ran a little more than the architects and certainly more than we intended, so you learn about that.

Looks like they are going to shave down the mound in the front right of the 1st hole. Proabably a needed change as there were just too many well struck balls that shot across the green.

I'll give you an example of the second hole.  There is a wonderful hump in the fairway if we move the fairway about five yards left on the left and about 4 or 5 yards in on the right, it's going to make that hump much more pronounced and it drives on the bunker at the end much more in place.  So it's little things that we watch that we say if we do that, it will be even better.

I agree with this as well. With the current fairway line, there were hardly any balls that hit the bunker. Moving the fairway to the left will bring that bunker (which has really nasty junk in the entrance) back in play.

There's not going to be an overall narrowing of this golf course.  It's going to play kind of overall wide because we think it needs to be wide with the winds and the bounciness to it.

I really hope they widen the #5 fairway back to where it was. But I really liked the narrowed fairway on the 16th. It made the hump in front of the green really prominent when you missed the fairway to the left off the tee.

[Richard Choi]

Richard,
How do you think it'll play in June?

When I lived in Portland, every June was amazingly rainy and cool.  I'm thinking that CB's sandy soil will handle the rain well, but I really don't know.

Looks like Mike Davis answered your question as well...

You know, Chambers Bay came in so incredibly dry that we'd never had any ‑‑ this course is pure sand.  If you dig down six inches, if you dig down a foot, if you dig down five feet it's sand.  And what's interesting is you could have never gotten another course with any type of other grass like this here you could have kept it like this for months on end and the grass is just dormant.

What we've learned is you've got to have moisture down six inches, 12 inches, 24 inches to get a consistent dry where it doesn't go from really good to literally baked out, unplayable in a matter of minutes.

That's what we learned.  So Tuesday night what we ended up going with the superintendent and our agronomist said recharging the greens, we essentially flood the things, absolutely flooded them.  So we got water down 12 inches, 16 inches, 24 inches, and that allowed Chambers Bay to, essentially, you know, dry out on a much more even keel basis.

In June, they just won't have to "charge the base" and play plenty firm and fast.

[Phil McDade]

Richard (and Garland, if he's out there ):

You've mentioned the course by nature's doing may not be as F&F as the USGA found it this week, but they can compensate for that in June with less watering on the course.

How are the winds in June there? It seemed the US Am had one day of really brisk winds at CBay this week, with another day or two of moderate winds. Would it be reasonable to expect somewhat more windy conditions (or the odds of that increasing) with a mid-June tournament?

[William_G]

Good question Richard.

If I were in charge I would be sweating bullets and put on full body kevlar as there will be complaints from the pros no matter what is done.

I would also consult with all the experts and make judicious improvements.

The success of the tournament will be largely based on the weather which is out of everybody's hands, remember Bethpage in 09. (of course no mud at CB).

I like Roger Maltbie, he's been around forever!

[Richard Choi]

The wind is pretty consistent throughout the year, though stronger in winter. But day to day, it is a crapshoot.

And I think Chambers Bay is about as weatherproof as any major tournament site. If there is no wind, they will just play everything from tips. If it rains alot, the course can play still very firm and fast because of all that sand and water just drains out to the sound. Add to that weather in NW is pretty mild to start with, this is going to be one of the most controlled US Open in history.

[Garland Bayley]

Richard,
How do you think it'll play in June?

When I lived in Portland, every June was amazingly rainy and cool.  I'm thinking that CB's sandy soil will handle the rain well, but I really don't know.

No Dan, what you remember is that it rained on Rose Festival every year. But that is the first week in June. Once the big parade is over, the rains shut off until September.

[Garland Bayley]

... perhaps some lengthening and mainly amped up green speeds are in order....

They lengthened it to over 7700 yards for the Am. I don't think any more lengthening is in order. Once they tested out most of the length in the medal play rounds, it seems they had fun shortening it up on various holes for the match play, thereby creating more half par holes than were originally there.

IMO There is no reason to amp the green speeds beyond what they were this last week either. With the contours in the greens, pushing the speeds higher will make them too difficult.

[Garland Bayley]

Richard:

None. Maltbie, of course, is an old Tour pro, and probably is channeling their complaints already.

Who is more qualified than a a guy who has done nothing in his life but travel and play golf at a high level to comment on such things?

Those of us who read GCA on a daily basis?

Really?

Do you lump Ben Crenshaw into the "old Tour pro" crowd?

Those of us who read GCA on a daily basis. Yes, really! Playing golf at a high level doesn't qualify you to comment on anything but playing golf at a high level. Ben Crenshaw not only plays golf on a high level, but he also studies the architecture of the courses. Now if you told me Maltbie went around studying and critiquing golf course architecture and is a respected commentator on that too, then he would get a better chance of being listened to by those here who at least "read" the topic on a "daily" basis.

[Garland Bayley]

In fairness to Roger, if I was in charge, I would change a few things.

- I would move the #9 tee box from where it is now to below 8th fairway where a practice greens are located right now. This would make this more of an uphill par 3, which would add to variety and the green looks absolutely gorgeous from that angle.

- I would add a higher landing zone left and above where the current fairway is for #12. As it is, this is a driver only hole as lay up does not buy you anything. It would be nice to have a higher and wider landing area that gives you at least little better view to the green so that a layup is a real choice.

Let's nix those two ideas!
 

[Garland Bayley]

In June the high rough will be more lush than we saw. Despite fairway width, their speed and slope will carom balls into bad lies. I can see a mid-cut of rough. They really experimented with hole length at the Am, expect much less elasticity in 2015.
If there are changes I could see them on #7 around the green and on the hillside left of 9. If they were going to rebuild/reshape greens I think #s 1,7, 9 and 18 are candidates.  

I think pace of play will be a real issue on Friday and Saturday in the US Open and they will neuter by hole locations or recontouring.
Outside of Jacobsen and Maltbie (pls correct title) I wonder if any Champions tour or regular tour players were around this week.

Tway! Doh!
Caddied for his son.

[Garland Bayley]

Phil, a great line about Langer He just romped at the Champions Tour even here in Seattle! And exact yardages come in handy at TPC Snoqualmie.

Looks like Mike Davis have following changes in mind...

But as an example, we had no idea the first green would run the areas just short of that as fast as it did.  And it's, again, something that you just couldn't see before you had it set up that way, and probably ran a little more than the architects and certainly more than we intended, so you learn about that.

Looks like they are going to shave down the mound in the front right of the 1st hole. Proabably a needed change as there were just too many well struck balls that shot across the green.

I'll give you an example of the second hole.  There is a wonderful hump in the fairway if we move the fairway about five yards left on the left and about 4 or 5 yards in on the right, it's going to make that hump much more pronounced and it drives on the bunker at the end much more in place.  So it's little things that we watch that we say if we do that, it will be even better.

I agree with this as well. With the current fairway line, there were hardly any balls that hit the bunker. Moving the fairway to the left will bring that bunker (which has really nasty junk in the entrance) back in play.

There's not going to be an overall narrowing of this golf course.  It's going to play kind of overall wide because we think it needs to be wide with the winds and the bounciness to it.

I really hope they widen the #5 fairway back to where it was. But I really liked the narrowed fairway on the 16th. It made the hump in front of the green really prominent when you missed the fairway to the left off the tee.

What?  He didn't mention 9 and 12?  I'm with Mr. Davis on this one.

[Garland Bayley]

...
The success of the tournament will be largely based on the weather which is out of everybody's hands, remember Bethpage in 09. (of course no mud at CB).
...

Western Washington and Oregon may have the most stable weather in the nation around US Open time. Plus the course is sand based. The weather will have no effect on the success of the 2015 US Open.

[Phil McDade]

... perhaps some lengthening and mainly amped up green speeds are in order....

They lengthened it to over 7700 yards for the Am. I don't think any more lengthening is in order. Once they tested out most of the length in the medal play rounds, it seems they had fun shortening it up on various holes for the match play, thereby creating more half par holes than were originally there.

IMO There is no reason to amp the green speeds beyond what they were this last week either. With the contours in the greens, pushing the speeds higher will make them too difficult.

Garland:

Yes, the course is lengthy and can be played at 7,700+, as you mention. My observation was based on how it was set up for the US Am -- I agree the USGA did a nice job of mixing up hole lengths and creating several half-par holes. That's, of course, the aim of match play. My argument would be the course for stroke play -- if playing near to the F&F conditions we saw this past week -- needs to be really lengthened to near its full potential to avoid CBay becoming a birdie-fest for the world's top golfers come 2015. (Notable to me was that Uihlien -- again, a fine amateur but not of the caliber of the US Open field we saw this past June, had 8 birdies and an eagle in 33 holes in the final match. An birdied five of the first six holes in the semi's Saturday. Admittedly, some of those may have been conceded, but my view of the US Open is that it's the one tournament where par ought to be defended, to use a cliche.)

(I'm also not one of those who thinks you lengthen a course to "Tiger-proof" it, to borrow another cliche. Lengthening tends to play into the hands of the longer players. But the other response -- the historic USGA response -- is to narrow courses, and it doesn't seem that you can appreciably narrow CBay without taking away its fundamental character and strategy ((again, based on what I saw on TV)). And the mid-to-shorter player who's in the US Open can contend with a longer course if it plays F&F ((not to bring up Whistling Straits, but I will -- in 2004, when the course played pretty F&F, two of the three players who made the playoff were short hitters -- DeMarco and Leonard. In 2010, when the course did not play all that F&F save for the last day, the leaderboard was dominated by long hitters -- Kaymer, Bubba, D. Johnson, McIlroy.)) )

The greens did not appear to be all that fast, again from what I could tell from TV. I don't buy the contour argument -- this isn't Pebble Beach, where tiny greens limit pin positions. These greens look pretty big, and appear to have ample space for hole locations in reasonably flat or un-heavily contoured areas. Sure, the golfer may have to traverse plenty of contouring to get to them -- but they do so at Augusta National as well, which are maybe the fastest greens anyone plays all year long, and these greens don't look as heavily contoured as Augusta's.

I await your corrections.

[Tom Yost]

First, let me just get this off my chest... Pro tournament golfers can bite me.   

But seriously, I think the USGA has to learn that the techniques they typically need to use on a typical course to "strengthen" it for a championship aren't exactly needed at Chambers Bay because it is far from typical.   Narrowing the fairways/growing the rough, drying out and firming up the course and increasing the green speeds are all things that you see in preparation for a USGA championship.  The course is already firmer that most any course in the USA due to the sandy soil base and fescue turf.  The course is designed with options, angles and contours that feed the ball and to limit those features by imposing the standard "ribbon of fairway lined with penal rough" mentality takes away from the quality of the design.   And finally, the slopes and contours of the greens are such that increasing the speed too much will result in some goofiness.

I hope they learned a lot from the setup at the Am.  I'm not saying there aren't any changes needed.  But I think they did learn they probably didn't need to dry it out as much as they thought.   And the green speed at 11 could be on the hairy edge. 

[Phil McDade]

Tom:

I generally agree with you. However, in watching the US Am, I only saw one truly goofy hole placement, and it was the one where the ball took something of a U-turn before coming back to the player. I would argue the ideal green speed for a US Open ought to be something just short of what happened at Shinnecock on a few holes. (That Open won by Goosen has been unfairly characterized as over-the-top throughout the course, when in my mind only two holes were -- the green they watered mid-round on the last day, and the green -- 17? -- where Mickelson three-putted from about five feet.) Are the greens at CBay any more severely contoured than that of Augusta, and what the players faced at Oakmont? The US Open to me ought to be the hardest course these guys play, and I saw alot of birdies at the US Am by players not the caliber of Tiger, Phil, Stricker and......