Is Chambers Bay everything that's wrong with golf?

[Garland Bayley]

Too expensive
Too difficult
Takes to long to play

Personally as a person that sprays the ball, I have not found Chambers Bay to be too difficult, including when I played 7700 yards.
Taking to long to play is a attribute of the golf, not the course. The course is wide enough that even for someone like me there is little need for searching.


Too expensive is a legitimate concern, especially now that they are extracting the US Open tax.

[Richard Choi]

I disagree, and I even disagree that the list of U.S. Open champions is weak. Over the last forty or fifty years, the U.S. Open was typically played on a course with very narrow (20-35 yards) fairways and green 4-6" rough.  The player thought best equipped to handle these conditions was an accurate ballstriker.  Look at the list of champions.  Lee Trevino, Larry Nelson, Hale Irwin, Lee Janzen...these guys were really accurate ballstrikers, capable of hitting fairways and then small greens with longer irons.

John, you can disagree all you want. It does not change the FACT that The Open and Masters winners win more often than US Open/PGA winners.

The first golf tournament I remember watching carefully on television was the final round of the 1981 U.S. Open.  I was just starting to get interested in golf at the time.  If I am not mistaken, David Graham hit every fairway and 17 of 18 greens to win the tournament at Merion GC.  That's golf artistry of a type that is rarely rewarded anymore.  That's not luck, that's skill.

It is a combination of luck and skill. Out of hundreds of rounds, you are bound to have one or two of those.

For one thing, one player does not that type of advantage (60% vs 50% success) over all other players. 

Not one player, but that is just simplification I made to show the statistics involved. But you can see clearly from stats posted on the PGA Tour site that some guys more accurate off the tee than others.

The fact that the field still beats that player more often than not (assuming you've verified that fact) is the nature of golf, where there are 150 possible winners, and a great player wins about 10% of the time.

No, it is the nature of statistics.

In my example with the weighted coin, the most likely outcome for the weighted coin flipper is that he will flip heads 8 times out of 14. Out of the field of 100, about 40 guys will tie or best that based on pure luck. 9 guys will flip 10 heads or better.

In the long run, the weighted coin will win out, but in the short run, luck will have a greater influence.

[Niall C]

"In the long run, the weighted coin will win out, but in the short run, luck will have a greater influence."

Richard


Luck may well have a greater influence over the short run than it does in the long run however, the relative skill of the players to hit the ball straight will have a far, far greater effect. That's just obvious.


Niall

[John Kirk]

Sorry to stray from the topic at hand, but it sure looks good on TV!

[Richard Choi]

Niall, that is all I am trying to say. Luck has greater influence over a short term.


You can fight that effect by increasing the term. Setting up a course with narrow fairways and very thick rough where options are limited is in effect increasing the influence of luck by reducing the number of interaction.


This is the main point I am trying to convey. I am going to start a new thread on this. I think this is a very good topic for this site.

[BHoover]

I'm listening to my local ESPN radio this morning (can't watch because I'm at work) and the hosts are getting on Chambers Bay pretty severely. The comments range from "I tuned into watch the U.S. Open and a British Open broke out", "this course is as tricked up as Bushwood in Caddyshack 2", and "this may be the weirdest course I've ever seen".

They are pining for a Winged Foot.

[Tim Pitner]

I'm very dubious of the idea of judging a course by the perceived caliber of the players who have won tournaments there.  Muirfield is a venue with an impressive list of Open Championship winners, yet Thomas Levet very nearly won an Open there.  Would Muirfield be a lesser course if Levet had won?  Ballybunion and Royal County Down have hosted Irish Opens fairly recently and the winners were not particularly accomplished.  Does that make them inferior?  Unknown Ben Curtis won at Royal St. George's but a cast of top and in-form players finished right behind him and had opportunities to win.  Sometimes the best player during a given week isn't one of the top guns.  Are Firestone and Torrey Pines great courses because they consistently "identified" Tiger Woods as the best player?  I don't think there's much of a correlation.

[John Kirk]

Niall, that is all I am trying to say. Luck has greater influence over a short term.


You can fight that effect by increasing the term. Setting up a course with narrow fairways and very thick rough where options are limited is in effect increasing the influence of luck by reducing the number of interaction.


This is the main point I am trying to convey. I am going to start a new thread on this. I think this is a very good topic for this site.

Please do, Richard.  I will be happy to fight you tooth and nail on the subject.

 

[John Kirk]

I disagree, and I even disagree that the list of U.S. Open champions is weak. Over the last forty or fifty years, the U.S. Open was typically played on a course with very narrow (20-35 yards) fairways and green 4-6" rough.  The player thought best equipped to handle these conditions was an accurate ballstriker.  Look at the list of champions.  Lee Trevino, Larry Nelson, Hale Irwin, Lee Janzen...these guys were really accurate ballstrikers, capable of hitting fairways and then small greens with longer irons.

John, you can disagree all you want. It does not change the FACT that The Open and Masters winners win more often than US Open/PGA winners.

My final word on this subject in this thread...

The reason U.S. Open winners have a worse overall success than the other majors is due to the unusual demands placed on those players, which favors a specific, unusual set of skills not seen elsewhere.

[Jud_T]

John, you can disagree all you want. It does not change the FACT that The Open and Masters winners win more often than US Open/PGA winners.

Is it a coincidence that the 2 best tournaments to watch year in and year out are the Masters and the Open?  I think not...

[Garland Bayley]

Once again, the point has been skipped over.  To create a public amenity paid for by the public purse only to then have the public access the amenity though a high price entry fee is very a dubious governmental undertaking.  I realize that we are golf wing nuts and so don't mind that our desires are looked after, but there is a bigger picture...and this isn't coming from a raving Tea Party guy....


Ciao

The reason it has been skipped over is that you seem to skip over all the statements that let you know that historically the local residents have gotten a significant break on the green fees.

[Jonathan Mallard]

I'm sure I once read that the USGA set up US Open courses with the clear objective of finding the winner that most exemplified Hogan! In other words someone that would hit it arrow straight with perfect distance control. Then they went ahead and made every course as penal as possible. Ironically of course they actually identified a winner that couldn't hit anything straight but could scramble better than everyone else (Thinking Andy North, Scott Simpson) because nobody could hit the fairways or greens.

North, while he could be accurate, was really just a very strong and athletic player (he's 6'-4", and still holds basketball records at his high school alma mater) whose style of play -- conservative, solid putting, ability to play well out of the rough -- served him well in his two US Open wins on tough course set-ups (Cherry Hills in '78; Oakland Hills in '85).

Also during that era, there was a gentleman named Dave Pelz who was starting to study the game. One thing he believed in was solid contact with the ball during the putting stroke. He defined it as striking the ball at the center of percussion. Pelz studied Physics in college.


To help teach this, Pelz designed a teacher putter with interchangeable insets to give immediate feedback on how close the ball was being struck to the ideal spot. They came in 3 settings: 1/4", 1/8" and 1/16".


The concept was that folks would start out with the largest tolerance, and over time, work toward the tightest tolerance as their ability to repeat their putting stroke improved.


The only pro able to consistently putt the ball without one of the 1/16" tolerance insets hitting and deflecting the ball was Andy North.

[Mike Hendren]

Chambers Bay has accomplished the impossible:  making GCA lose its nerve. 
 
Bogey

[Eric Smith]

I must say that this tournament has made a believer out of me wrt this golf course and I will do my best to plan a visit to Washington and play Chambers Bay one day in the not too distant future.

[Tim_Cronin]

Having seen it now for a day-plus, I think it's a tremendous course. This is aside from the potential enhancements/foul-ups the USGA may inflict on it.

[Ken Moum]

Back to the original question.

Of course it's too expensive. But that's more a product of starting with a quarry than anything directly to do with the course.

Too slow? American golfers are slow, the course is only partly to blame.  I've been in Scotland almost five weeks and Scots seem to get around courses similar to this in reasonable time.

But the too difficult question is intriguing.

I think there's a huge difference between FUN and difficult vs. NO FUN and difficult.

Courses like Chambers Bay look like fun because there don't appear to be a lot of places to lose balls and pile up penalty strokes.

[BHoover]

He was subtle, but Gary Player does not appear to be a fan of Chambers Bay.

[Paul Gray]

Too difficult?

I will just say that, having learnt the game as a kid on a links course far less expansive than CB, there can surely be no better place for a hacker to have a  hack than a free running course. The moment you can't get away with duffing the ball a hundred or so yards along the ground, the game becomes exponentially more difficult for the novice or physically weak player.

All that said, this thread, perhaps, was intended to be a statement more than a genuine question, given that there can be very few on here who don't know and understand that ground game golf provides opportunity for all levels of players.

[Tommy Williamsen]

Too difficult?

I will just say that, having learnt the game as a kid on a link course far less expansive than CB, there can surely be no better place for a hacker to have a  hack than a free running course. The moment you can't get away with duffing the ball a hundred or so yards along the ground, the game becomes exponentially more difficult for the novice or physically weak player.

All that said, this thread, perhaps, was intended to be a statement more than a genuine question, given that there can be very few on here who don't know and understand that ground game golf provides opportunity for all levels of players.

Since I posed the question I can answer you. It was not a statement but a follow up question to a Nicklaus thread.  And it was a question. 

[Rick Shefchik]

If the reaction at my club is any indication, Chambers Bay is not going over very well with the U.S. viewing public. I mentioned that I would love to play the course, and the response I got amounted to "not me" and "why?"

[Ken Moum]

If the reaction at my club is any indication, Chambers Bay is not going over very well with the U.S. viewing public. I mentioned that I would love to play the course, and the response I got amounted to "not me" and "why?"

I hang out on www.4gea.com, a golf equipment group, and the reactions over there range from "The USGA is trying to brainwash us into buying their garbage about brown courses by holding our national championship on a British Open course," to "Why would anyone ever want to play a place like that?"

I am getting resigned to the fact that what I like is WAY outside the American mainstream.

K

[John Kavanaugh]

Ken,


Would you pay for you and your wife to play Chambers Bay?

[BCowan]

If the reaction at my club is any indication, Chambers Bay is not going over very well with the U.S. viewing public. I mentioned that I would love to play the course, and the response I got amounted to "not me" and "why?"

I hang out on www.4gea.com, a golf equipment group, and the reactions over there range from "The USGA is trying to brainwash us into buying their garbage about brown courses by holding our national championship on a British Open course," to "Why would anyone ever want to play a place like that?"

I am getting resigned to the fact that what I like is WAY outside the American mainstream.

K

Ken,

    I just think the announcers have done a horrible job explaining the benefits of ground game and getting LOTS of roll with your tee shot.  Who doesn't want more roll? 

[Ken Moum]

Ken,


Would you pay for you and your wife to play Chambers Bay?

Not a chance...

I'm currently sitting in a B&B that's less than 10 miles from Prestwick, and I'm having a hell of a time convincing myself that it's worth 150 GBP... my wife says since we're here we have to play the home of the first Open Championship, but Damn that's a lot of money.

$300 for Chambers Bay is too much. But then so are the fees at Pinehurst #2, Pebble Beach, Bethpage Black, Torrey Pines South, Bandon, Prairie Club, The Old Course, Royal Dornoch, et.al.

Hell, I've played Karsten Creek in Stillwater OK a few times and there's NO CHANCE I'd pay the asinine $325 they're asking now.  I played it for free as a volunteer at some tournaments they hold, and even paid $150 last fall when my wife had a free round coming and could take a four-ball for the normal accompanied guest fee.

Those courses all have perfectly fine reasons for setting their fees where they do.  Commonly it's to hold down demand for access. In some cases, Karsten Creek for instance, they don't need your money, have endowed every hole to something like $1 million for maintenance.

Chambers is (apparently) using the money to help pay for their 900-acre park.

Fair enough, but I do what I can to get on for less than retail.

K

[Brent Carlson]

Too difficult?

I will just say that, having learnt the game as a kid on a link course far less expansive than CB, there can surely be no better place for a hacker to have a  hack than a free running course. The moment you can't get away with duffing the ball a hundred or so yards along the ground, the game becomes exponentially more difficult for the novice or physically weak player.

All that said, this thread, perhaps, was intended to be a statement more than a genuine question, given that there can be very few on here who don't know and understand that ground game golf provides opportunity for all levels of players.

Paul - great point.  I have played the same ball over 4 consecutive rounds at Chambers.  This is not uncommon.  It's refreshing to not lose balls all the time.