I'm not as sure about whether Chambers will be patron friendly. It was a hard walk, and that's mostly from the middle of the fairways. Walking through the dunes is hard and somewhat dangerous work.
On the distance, Davis never taps out the course all the way, so even though it can stretch to probably upwards of 8,000, I doubt they ever play it beyond 7,500. He'll mix up tee boxes each day, as he did this weekend. #15 will play 250 one day and 150 the next day. I've never seen a course with more flexibility to stretch. I played the furthest tees that were set up on one day, and there were almost always one or two sets of tees behind me that were unmarked, but could have been used. I measured the boxes we played to about 7,200. So, clearly, there's room to play around and put the guys on different tee boxes almost every day.
On the grass, I think there's a fair chance that there are bare spots where the fescue just doesn't take, but it shouldn't impact the playability of the course. Clearly brown spots are of no concern to the USGA based on this weekend, so I'm not sure it'll be a big deal.
Has the makings of a much more interesting course than Pinehurst to the TV viewer though with more up and down and views of the water and trains.