I found myself recently at a golf shop here in Eugene watching the finish of the Players. A discussion quickly switched to talk of this years US Open host, Chambers Bay. The comments of the employee were very interesting. Some I downright disagreed with, others I found fascinating. For the sake of completeness, I'll list out the two big points he made, but I'm hoping the thread focuses on the 2rd, as I think that is the one which could lead to the more valuable discussion and the other two have been covered in previous threads.
1. He was completely underwhelmed with the course. He found that holes 7, 8, and 9 were awful, citing that he landed on the 9th green right in the middle and kicked into the bunker (when I offered that this was a characteristic of links-like golf, he countered with the ridiculous elevation drop not fitting in.
2. He claimed that the golf course "was an incredibly poor representation of golf in the Pacific Northwest." Perplexed by his answer, I asked why, but he couldn't quite find a reason to describe it. He continued by saying, "If they could find a way to have it at Bandon, that'd be so much better, but obviously that can't happen with the logistics of getting people there." This would indicate that it's not that the golf course is links-like that is creating his distaste for the golf course.
But since I heard his argument, I've continued to think about the argument that the golf course didn't fit in the Pacific Northwest. What defines how a golf course fits into place and its region? Surely if you were to build it off regional characteristics, every course in the Pacific Northwest would be lined with trees. But Bandon isn't, so why does that golf course fit in this region? How do courses like Shadow Creek fit into this argument?
I'd be interested to hear what you guys think before I start spewing my own thoughts.