Jim, to be clear, I'm not calling you a moron. I'm trying to save you from looking like one by encouraging you to think just a bit about what you're reporting and whether it jibes with what you saw on television this week, what others with firsthand course experience have unanimously reported, what you can discern from satellite images, and what the bounds of logic governing the world have taught you.
When you boil it down, you're saying that the USGA told you that the average transition from green to tee at Chambers Bay is 540 yards. I believe you're too smart to believe that such a measurement is remotely accurate. I have no doubt that someone played Chambers while wearing a pedometer and took over 20,000 steps. I suspect I would come close. But it's not because the course is designed as a 10-mile walk. A huge number of those steps come from things that have nothing to do with the architect. Nonetheless, that anecdote always eventually gets turned into Greg Norman saying "This course is an 11 mile walk if you just go straight down the center of fairways without playing!" and a bunch of guys on the internet taking his word for it.