Is Chambers Bay the Moment the Public "Gets It"?

[BCowan]

With no shade issues the modern bent grass IMO would keep the poa out.  They also require much less water.  Some of the fescue elitist haven't experienced the modern bents in a non Arb setting and might be surprised.    Enjoying the US Open.   

Please name one golf course on the West Coast whose bent grass has kept the Poa out? This ranks as the most uninformed statement in the history of GCA!

   Please name a course in the Pac west that has pure distinction grass on their greens.  Your last sentence is beyond humorous.  A

[Ken Fry]

I'm requesting some education.

All the talk of Chambers Bay seems to focus on fescue.  I've never been to the Pacific Northwest so the exact climate conditions aren't familiar to me.

Kingsley Club has fescue.  Dan Lucas has the turf, including greens, in pristine condition and does every year.  The course has been open for over 15 years.

Is Northern Michigan and Washington vastly different or is the amount of traffic on Chambers Bay make fescue difficult?

I'm in the camp that feels the greens are terrible.  What will they play like Sunday afternoon if they're that rough during  the opening round???

Ken

[Brent Carlson]

I'm requesting some education.

All the talk of Chambers Bay seems to focus on fescue.  I've never been to the Pacific Northwest so the exact climate conditions aren't familiar to me.

Kingsley Club has fescue.  Dan Lucas has the turf, including greens, in pristine condition and does every year.  The course has been open for over 15 years.

Is Northern Michigan and Washington vastly different or is the amount of traffic on Chambers Bay make fescue difficult?

I'm in the camp that feels the greens are terrible.  What will they play like Sunday afternoon if they're that rough during  the opening round???

Ken

Ken,


I've played Kingsley and the greens are in great shape there.  The greens at Chambers are fundamentally different to me.  While Kingsley is firm, Chambers is on a whole other level.  Chambers seems to me that it's much firmer from tee through green than Kingsley.  I'll let an agronomy expert tell us why.


PS - I think the greens are fine and will be on Sunday.

[Richard Choi]

Please name a course in the Pac west that has pure distinction grass on their greens.  Your last sentence is beyond humorous.

Ben, there are NUMEROUS golf courses in this area that started with pure bent grass greens. Many of those courses have minimal number of trees around the green area.


Not one of those have kept those greens pure bent grass for more than a few years.


If it is possible, I have not seen it.

[Jason Thurman]

I'm sure Ben has a very good source for his statement that he'll fill us in on soon. Don't be too quick to dismiss him. My guess is his dad probably told him about a conversation he had with a guy who owns a suit store who once had a customer that was a superintendent in North Dakota and had no poa problems on his greens during his first year after converting to Pure Distinction.

[BCowan]

Please name a course in the Pac west that has pure distinction grass on their greens.  Your last sentence is beyond humorous.

Ben, there are NUMEROUS golf courses in this area that started with pure bent grass greens. Many of those courses have minimal number of trees around the green area.


Not one of those have kept those greens pure bent grass for more than a few years.


If it is possible, I have not seen it.

Richard,

   I actually just got off the phone with a seed company.  Monterey Peninsula CC which holds the AT&T is going to it.  There is another course called Winchester CC has had it for 2.5 years with not even 1% poa accumulation.   Pure Distinction is in San Fran and many parts of Cali.  Also with Poa Cure just on the market, it is a game changer.  Pure Distinction can handle a high rate of poa herbicides I've been told.  Pure Distinction adapts very well to many climates. 

''I'm sure Ben has a very good source for his statement that he'll fill us in on soon''

Actually some of my close friends are Keepers.  One actually has PD on their greens.  Have you putted on PD greens, my guess not? 

[Richard Choi]

I would wait another 5 years before heaping an appraise. I have seen courses that kept pure bent for 2 or 3 years. They usually do not get past 5 to 7.

[BCowan]

Richard,

   There are keepers in the UK that are inquiring about PD.  I was skeptical in the past.  The grass is in another league imo. 

[Pete Lavallee]

Was this "super grass" and associated herbicides available in 2007 when CB was built? No premier golf club on the Pacific Coast has been successful at this point in time keeping Poa out; that my friend is an indisputable fact! We are talking about PB, Bandon, Cypress Point and wait for it, MPCC.

[BCowan]

Was this "super grass" and associated herbicides available in 2007 when CB was built? No premier golf club on the Pacific Coast has been successful at this point in time keeping Poa out; that my friend is an indisputable fact! We are talking about PB, Bandon, Cypress Point and wait for it, MPCC.

Of course they weren't available.  Was Chambers Bay's greens in this poor of shape 2 years ago?  Could the shape of their current greens prevent them from ever getting another US Open?  If it wasn't great, highly ranked clubs wouldn't be experimenting with it.  PB could have sand or clay greens and people would line up to play it.  Key phrase ''At this point''.  PD has been on the market for more than 2 years.  That is another fact. 

[Carl Rogers]

How does firm and fast work in the Eastern or Southern US if you do not have sand for soils?  I know that Lester George has sand capped some of his courses, but is that cost realistic everywhere? Is the general golfing public going to conclude that P#2 & CB are unique and cannot be duplicated?

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Read this:


http://aggca.blogspot.com/

[Ken Fry]

Read this:

http://aggca.blogspot.com/

Steve,
 
The blog post makes sense to me but Kingsley also gets temperatures above 66 degrees for a decent portion of 3-4 months.  After that, does it come down to traffic levels?
 
It's clear in the ground level shots of Chambers greens the battle between fescue and poa.  People can argue the "challenge" all they want or the "no guarentee of smooth greens" comments.  Hit and hope is not the strategy I want to see employed at the National Open.
 
Ken

[Mike Schott]

I was on a night shift last night so watched the Tiger group all the way to the very bitter end on video streaming. I think it might be time to admit that this whole fescue experiment has been a total failure. I also participated in the sandtrap forum and everyone to a man ended up saying the greens were nothing short of hideous. 

Hi Marc. I also participate on that forum. In general most of the posters there know little about agronomy or golf course architecture. Typically they are the typical enthusiast golfer, ANGC is their role model.

[Howard Riefs]

I'm requesting some education.

All the talk of Chambers Bay seems to focus on fescue.  I've never been to the Pacific Northwest so the exact climate conditions aren't familiar to me.

Kingsley Club has fescue.  Dan Lucas has the turf, including greens, in pristine condition and does every year.  The course has been open for over 15 years.

Is Northern Michigan and Washington vastly different or is the amount of traffic on Chambers Bay make fescue difficult?

I'm in the camp that feels the greens are terrible.  What will they play like Sunday afternoon if they're that rough during  the opening round???

Ken

Ken -


While the fairways at Kingsley are fescue, the greens are bent.

[Donovan Childers]

I personally like what I have seen, but no the general public is not accepting this. Everybody is harping on the greens. So my question is this, many courses in this area of the country have 100% poa greens, if Chambers went with poa greens and left everything else the way it is, how would the course play, or change opinions?

[archie_struthers]

 


Is this an exercise in conditioning or architecture on site. Let's talk about moving pars on 1 and 18 . Just a number , right?

How about some of the great green designs , I love them . It's a treat to see .

[Connor Dougherty]

I've enjoyed the coverage and the course very much, but when something like this happens: https://vine.co/v/eiiZ2EZLduQ, I can't lie to myself and say that these greens are ideal and suitable for a US Open. I'd really like to see people differentiate between conditions, setup, and design, because for the this is by far the biggest issue with how the general public is perceiving this Open.

[Garland Bayley]

How about Old Mac at Bandon. What're the walks like there?

Shorter than the walks at Pacific Dunes.


Pacific has two green to tee walks that are long like the two at Chambers Bay. At Pacific, it is from 10 to 11, and from 13 to 14. On some occasions the make you do the long walk from 9 to 10. At Chambers Bay you cross over nines with a longer walk from 3 to 4, and then back over again with a longer walk from 14 to 15. These walks go through the concession area, and most times they provide a cart for the uphill direction.

[Paul Gray]

Unfortunately, we can all see where this is going. In prime time on Sunday, the leaders are going to be putting on patchy, bumpy greens. I don't think they're rolling much worse than the ones at Pebble or Torrey in past Opens, but they certainly look worse and have more bare spots.


Personally, there's a lot I like about Chambers. I love the boldness of the course. I love that between the soft sand and the rear fescue eyelashes, the bunkers are actually playing like hazards. I love the firm and fast conditions. I love that the TV coverage is finally making full use of ProTracer. I even think the greens are rolling okay so far in spite of how bad they look in spots.


But the public legacy of this tournament is going to be awful greens. Just as Pinehurst did last year, this year's open is setting the sustainability movement a few years further backwards. Don't be surprised if Erin Hills puts white sand in all their bunkers and starts planting trees later this summer. The worst thing that can happen for their public acceptance in 2017 will be to have viewers tune in and say "Oh, this looks like that awful course from a couple years ago."

I'm rather inclined to agree with Jason. Softly, sofly, catchy monkey etc. You can't win a skeptical public over with extremes. The fairways; no problem. I honestly believe you can sell those to the public at a stroll. JK might even come to appreciate them one day.


The greens however, and I sat in the clubhouse of a very nice Surrey heathland course this afternoon and listened to the members talking, are all that anyone seems to be noticing. The bold course, the intelligent, strategic golf required to master it, is all being overshadowed as attention focuses on the putting surfaces. Shame.

[archie_struthers]

 




Let's not let conditioning detract from the architecture at hand . It seems so many times someone says a course isn't good because the greens weren't perfect or the bunkers were rough or unraked. Isn't it about the architecture here on GCA.


If it's a little rough out there, or shaggy , or poa and bumpy , so what . We are all playing the same course . Play some winter league golf in the northeast and it's rough but still loads of fun and competitive.  Play in the rain and wind in Ireland and it doesn't change the great architecture .

[Grant Saunders]

Is chambers bay the moment that public "get it"?

No. Its the moment people say " screw the water restrictions, I would rather pay a fine than play on a course like that".

[Matthew Essig]

Is chambers bay the moment that public "get it"?

No. Its the moment people say " screw the water restrictions, I would rather pay a fine than play on a course like that".

I fear this is the truth...

[noonan]

I would like to play it from the correct tees

[archie_struthers]

 


It seems conditioning is more important to this discussion than architecture . I talked to a few of my friends who are just occasional golfers to see if they are enjoying the Open ? They were effusive in their praise of the course and greens. It didn't bother them in the least that the greens are difficult to putt, they are used to it. The vistas, bunkering and run out of the golf ball was fun for them to watch .


Am I wrong or does the new majority here eschew architecture for conditioning . Would most rather play Double Eagle than Wild Horse?  Didn't Arnie and Jack play on some bumpy , slow greens for most of their careers, would they ask for perfect.


What a collective change . What's motivating it on site ? Please someone explain .