Image – About as close as I could get to Rory that day.
To be honest, I’ve never so much as sat through a major on television, let alone attended one. Unsure of what to expect given the overwhelmingly negative attitude about Chambers Bay by any media outlet not carrying it on their channel, I begrudgingly made my way to the last day of the U.S. Open (also known as the only place where skorts and visors are still alive and well) despite celebrating the upcoming wedding of some friends the night before. Nestled along scenic Puget Sound cradled by Mt. Rainer on one side and panoramas of the Olympic mountain range, it was sure to attract even more of those pesky transplants to the region, or at least that’s what I initially though. One look at the website and you can see why it’s ranked among the best public courses in the country. Could it be as bad as they were saying?
I’ve never played 18 holes of golf before, so I have no idea what the green is supposed to look and feel like, but I’m guessing it wasn’t like that. But by the fourth day, Chambers Bay was a dust bowl. People were walking around with their faces covered in handkerchiefs. My shoes were filled with sand and dust, my eyes scratched and puffy despite wearing sunglasses and I’m pretty sure I’ll be blowing sediment out of my nose for a couple more days. But everywhere I went, in between the nearly nine miles that I trudged around that course, I barely heard a complaint. It probably helped that you could take alcohol wherever you wanted, and all of the staff was exceptionally nice even at the 11th hour.
After digesting some of the commentary, my opinion of the whole “debacle” rests somewhere in the middle. Dubbing itself “the course the U.S. Open was waiting for,” Chambers Bay was obviously an embarrassment for golf in the Pacific Northwest on the media front. Friends that I’ve talked to who have played the course say that it never looked that brown. I thought, perhaps, this was our way of showing the rest of the world how we don’t water our lawns in the summertime because we are earth-savvy and, to be fair to the groundskeepers, it’s been an exceptionally dry springtime. However, given the scores that emerged at the end of play, it does seem like some of the players were being overly dramatic about it just because they didn’t do well. It really depended on whom you asked.
Nobody is blaming Chambers Bay, however. The finger pointing is at the USGA, who takes over the greens during the championship. Ian Poulter, who refrained from saying anything until after his last round, took to social media to say that it’s “disgraceful” that the USGA hasn’t’ apologized about the greens. “It wasn’t a bad golf course, in fact it played well and was playable.” What weren’t playable were the green surfaces, he said. “If this was a regular PGA tour even lots of players would have withdrawn and gone home on Wednesday.”
Billy Horschel also condemned the USGA for the lack of viewing space for the fans. Again, I had no other live golf experience to compare Chambers Bay to, but I literally saw a pre-teen using a periscope on a folding chair he brought with him just to be able to see Rory McIlroy tee off, which seems ridiculous for a minimum $125.00 ticket. Had I shelled out the cash and was a huge fan, I would have been peeved (but again, everybody seemed to really be enjoying themselves). It was hard to get access to the putting greens, too: waits for the grand stands were about an hour long. I found myself mostly watching the big screens that were nowhere near the action. Did I mention it felt 20 degrees warmer on the course than it actually was? Shade was few and far between, and it wasn’t long before I was soon envious of those skorts.
But championship coordinator Danny Sink stood by the event, basically shouting “Scoreboard!” at the haters: “The best players in the world are at the top … it was a great test of golf, and a fair test of golf.” And the event was a cash cow—more merchandise was sold at Chambers Bay than ever before. That might just bring the USGA back to University Place once it comes under consideration again in 2020, if even just to prove that it’s worthy of these talented, yet cranky athletes.
Arguably the course cost Dustin Johnson the title, but perhaps he just fell apart at the 18th hole. And Jordan Spieth played excellent golf that day. Between the epic finish, the Jason “Lucille 2” Day story of a vertigo-be-damned comeback, and caddie heroes, it had all the makings for an interesting and entertaining tournament. Which, frankly, is more than I can say about any golf I’ve seen since the days of John Daly.
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