Isn't Chambers Bay that rare bird..

[MCirba]

And lord forgive me for creating a Muccian subject title but isn't Chambers Bay that rare bird that is either a Doak Scale 10 or a Doak Scale 0?

I don't care what it costs or what agronomists say about conditions; those things can all be fixed.  But, from a golf architecture and from a pleasurable excitement standpoint, isn't it the very antithesis of fat, flat, flabby, and predictably flaccid golf?
 
The real question is will the results on the ground this week justify the huge expenditures to create such a vast and almost experimental golf laboratory and will it succeed in providing both scintillating tournament golf and oongoing pleasurable excitement for the playing public in the long term?   
 
Eagle or Dodo-Bird?   I guess we'll soon all see.

[MCirba]

For the record, Chambers Bay is the first US Open course in memory where I've known little about the course coming into the week.   
 
The more I'm learning, the more favorably inclined I'm becoming and I'm very excited to watch this all play out.

[Daryl David]

I am curious if the dialogue will be this heated about the course when the Open gets to Erin Hills. Will it be as polarizing?  Personally I get CB as an Open venue. I don't get EH.

[Garland Bayley]

And lord forgive me for creating a Muccian subject title but isn't Chambers Bay that rare bird that is either a Doak Scale 10 or a Doak Scale 0?

I don't care what it costs or what agronomists say about conditions; those things can all be fixed.  But, from a golf architecture and from a pleasurable excitement standpoint, isn't it the very antithesis of fat, flat, flabby, and predictably flaccid golf?
 
The real question is will the results on the ground this week justify the huge expenditures to create such a vast and almost experimental golf laboratory and will it succeed in providing both scintillating tournament golf and oongoing pleasurable excitement for the playing public in the long term?   
 
Eagle or Dodo-Bird?   I guess we'll soon all see.

How could it be a Doak zero? The mud pit that is the Castle Course got a zero. This is no mud pit. It cost a lot, because it was a reclamation project. Are you going to surmise the same about Ferry Point? 10 or 0?

[Terry Lavin]

I would say it's polarizing, but there's no way it's a 10 or a zero. It will provide a good test of golf to just about everybody. Whether it will identify the best player is certainly subject for debate. Whether it's really a links course or a bastardization of one is more grist for the mill. It has the look and feel of a course that could reward luck as often as skill and as a course where random, quirky results could very well be a predominant factor in who is rewarded and who gets screwed.

[Richard Choi]

What encourages random outcome is narrow fairways and thick rough. The set up at Chambers is perfect for giving more opportunities for recovery for better players. Statistically, this is what you want if you are a better player.

[Adrian_Stiff]

What encourages random outcome is narrow fairways and thick rough. The set up at Chambers is perfect for giving more opportunities for recovery for better players. Statistically, this is what you want if you are a better player.

Narrow fairways and thick rough don't make it random they just determine that straight hitting is paramount. Wider corridors takes away straight hitting as a premium and encourages bigger hitting. Firm greens coupled with difficult recovery shots favours no one though those with a better short game and touch and feel will obviously do better via the better recovery. My memories of Chambers Bay from the US AM was some holes playing like a pin ball machine with balls swinging across greens before running out of steam ending in the middle of the green. I am looking forward to it, I think watching over 4 days will give us all a better insight.

[Richard Choi]

Copied from the other thread...

Correct, there is little difference in being 1 yard in the rough and 3 yards in the rough in that both require a hack out with no real recovery options. But the point I was making was that it comes down to how many times you land in the rough and that is down to skill and not luck.

I would agree with you if we were talking about robots who can replicate the same results over and over or if a tournament involved playing hundreds of rounds. However, when you are talking about 72 tee shots over 4 rounds, there is a lot of variability involved just based on pure luck.

Let me put it this way...Let's say there is a tournament of flipping coins (about same percentages of hitting a fairway that is 25 yards wide like at US Open). Obviously, who wins this tournament is purely on luck.

What if there is a guy with a weighted coin that comes up heads 60% of times instead of 50%?

If there was a tournament, this guy would win for sure, correct?

Well, yes and no. Over thousands of coin flip, the guy with the weighted coin will win. However, if we are talking about only 72 flips in a tournament and there are 100 other players flipping, by pure luck, there is a better chance that one of the 100 players with a non-weighted coins will win than the person with the weighted coin. That winner will win on pure luck, not because he flipped better than the person with the weighted coin.

The narrower you make the fairway and eliminate the chances of recovery, you are increasing the influence of luck in determining the winner, not skill (and results above show it - the success of Master/The Open champions compared to PGA/US Open winners).

[Phil McDade]

I am curious if the dialogue will be this heated about the course when the Open gets to Erin Hills. Will it be as polarizing?  Personally I get CB as an Open venue. I don't get EH.

Daryl:


Both CBay and EHills are "big" courses with lots of flexibility re. tee positions and length of holes, both are fescue, both are meant to be played in a manner that replicates the links courses of the U.K., both have some great strategic variety (long tough holes; short half-par holes), and both have a lot of "up-and-down"-ness. And both offer numerous high-up vantage points from which to watch the tournament -- maybe not an architectural feature that anyone here cares about, but one that matters to the USGA. They are in many respects remarkably similar courses.


A big difference is whether EHills will find itself in two years with similar baked-out conditions that we're seeing at CBay (where the Northwest has had an unusually dry spring/early summer). EHills played really zippy when it hosted the US Am a few years ago -- linksier than some actual links I played in Scotland. But that was in mid-August after an unusually dry summer in these parts. We've had a lot of rain in Wisconsin the past couple of months, and I wonder if a June U.S. Open at EHills might play somewhat softer than CBay this week.

[David Kelly]

Chambers Bay's biggest boosters wouldn't call it anywhere near a 10 and it's biggest detractors couldn't say it was anywhere close to a 0. 

[Richard Choi]

TD has mentioned before that a course is usually a zero or a five.


CB is certainly not a five.

[MCirba]

I haven't played Chambers Bay and I live in PA but after watching the first two days of rollicking compelling golf I definitely plan to get there in the next few years. 

Is there a Doak Scale score for that? 

[David Federman]

Just now on The Golf Channel Gary Player went on an incredible tirade ripping Chambers Bay, Robert Trent Jones II, and the course set-up. The hosts really did not know how to respond - although in true Golf Channel fashion, it was Mr. Player! If he were asked, he would have given it a negative Doak scale rating! He thought it is a ridiculous golf course. Whatever one might think of Gary Player the architect, I have to love his frankness. I am sure he said what many of the players think.


I find it wildly entertaining to watch and would love to play it. Not sure how often, but at least twice!

[Matt Kardash]

Yeah, definitely not a 10, nor a 0. The golf course is a little too "Fantasy golf design" to ever merit a 10. The land is not ideal for golf and is too extreme. Add to that fact that they went over-the-top with the green complexes (the 7th comes to mind where if you are a foot short it rolls down a hill 60 yards into either a nasty bunker or a terrible lie in the rough). It's as if someone said "the 5th and 14th at Augusta are fantastic wild green complexes, let's build 18 like that!". It's too much. It makes for fun train wrecks when watching the pros, but I think some of the extreme contours would become tiresome after a while.
Compare this course to Cabot Links and there is no question in my mind which I would rather play.

[Garland Bayley]

Yeah, definitely not a 10, nor a 0. The golf course is a little too "Fantasy golf design" to ever merit a 10. The land is not ideal for golf and is too extreme. Add to that fact that they went over-the-top with the green complexes (the 7th comes to mind where if you are a foot short it rolls down a hill 60 yards into either a nasty bunker or a terrible lie in the rough). It's as if someone said "the 5th and 14th at Augusta are fantastic wild green complexes, let's build 18 like that!". It's too much. It makes for fun train wrecks when watching the pros, but I think some of the extreme contours would become tiresome after a while.
Compare this course to Cabot Links and there is no question in my mind which I would rather play.

Pat Mucci wants to know whether you have played the course.

[Brent Carlson]

I give Chambers a Doak 7.  It was 8 before the USGA updated 5 and 18.  I believe that most of the GCAers would find the course highly enjoyable for the F&F and strategy.  The walk - yes it is tough.

[BCowan]

Just now on The Golf Channel Gary Player went on an incredible tirade ripping Chambers Bay, Robert Trent Jones II, and the course set-up. The hosts really did not know how to respond - although in true Golf Channel fashion, it was Mr. Player! If he were asked, he would have given it a negative Doak scale rating! He thought it is a ridiculous golf course. Whatever one might think of Gary Player the architect, I have to love his frankness. I am sure he said what many of the players think.


I find it wildly entertaining to watch and would love to play it. Not sure how often, but at least twice!

I almost fell off my chair laughing at the 3 by 5 note card he was reading off.  Needing to save the game, increase sales for club manufactures. you can't make this stuff up.  Greens have too much undulation.  The laughable thing is he said Bethpage Black was great for the game but CB was the worst thing ever created.  Asking guys who have played both courses on which course is easier for the 18 handicap? 

Gary Williams: Mr Player, this US Open has had the most scores in the 60's. 
Player:  That is because they had to make the course easier.  Earlier he said course was too hard. 

[Matt Kardash]

Yeah, definitely not a 10, nor a 0. The golf course is a little too "Fantasy golf design" to ever merit a 10. The land is not ideal for golf and is too extreme. Add to that fact that they went over-the-top with the green complexes (the 7th comes to mind where if you are a foot short it rolls down a hill 60 yards into either a nasty bunker or a terrible lie in the rough). It's as if someone said "the 5th and 14th at Augusta are fantastic wild green complexes, let's build 18 like that!". It's too much. It makes for fun train wrecks when watching the pros, but I think some of the extreme contours would become tiresome after a while.
Compare this course to Cabot Links and there is no question in my mind which I would rather play.

Pat Mucci wants to know whether you have played the course.

I have not. I have played Cabot though. I think I have seen enough on television to get a  decent understanding on what the course is about. I am not saying it is bad, I am just saying it is far from perfect (10) and a little too extreme. I don"t think you need to play it too come to that conclusion. Of course everything I said will now apparently mean nothing because I never played the course. Fantastic.

[Garland Bayley]

Matt,


If you haven't played it then perhaps you shouldn't make false statements about all 18 greens being wild.

[Matt Kardash]

OK, there is a thing called exaggeration for effect. The majority are wild. Happy? I am talking about the green complexes in general. It's too much for my taste. Yes, I can tell from television, i have that kind of magic power. You like it as is, fantastic. I am not here to change your mind.

[BCowan]

Being that greens are a micro and tough to judge without playing I'm going to side with Garland.  Does anyone agree that they would be better in the US Open if they ran them at 10? 

[Garland Bayley]

Matt,


I would settle for a few are wild. When I played it, I certainly didn't notice them being anything out of the ordinary except for a few. Of course when you speed them up for the US Open, they tend to appear more extreme than they would otherwise.


Sagebrush would have wilder greens than Chambers Bay. I believe you have played Sagebrush.

[William_G]

Matt,

If you haven't played it then perhaps you shouldn't make false statements about all 18 greens being wild.

no doubt a weakness of an opinion is that which is not based on experience and goes along with if you don't have anything good to say, why say it

TV is never the same of course

it's the essence of golf is to play it

I don't think Gary Player has played it either, what a joke

an embarrassing feature of any site like this and contributes to living a life less fulfilled, get out there and get some 

[William_G]

It's nice that we have a variety of golf courses styles in the US

[Garland Bayley]

... the 7th comes to mind where if you are a foot short it rolls down a hill 60 yards into either a nasty bunker or a terrible lie in the rough). ...

Speaking of Sagebrush you are describing the analog of #1 at Sagebrush.


As far as what the ball rolls back down into, I have never seen one remotely come close to the bunker on 7 at Chambers Bay, and the rough you refer to was grown for the US Open and is slated to be returned to fairway after the Open.