Chambers Bay is the perfect U.S. Open course

Shortly after Chambers Bay opened in 2007, I played with someone who had been out at the course. After asking about the setup and how it played, the person offered some unsolicited advice: “Get a caddie. You have to play it with a caddie.”

This isn’t just because Chambers is devoid of flat spots and built along the counters of a gravel pit that makes it difficult, even dangerous, to walk at times. Instead, the caddies were so full of information about the course that it made playing it well next to impossible without knowing the nooks and crannies around each hole.

That was the baseline for the course: Brand new, yet unique and confusing. It was, when it opened, a place where aiming at flags was ill-advised, and knowing the contours of greens and landing areas was invaluable. A shot 40 yards away from the pin could be perfect, because the slopes fed the ball back down towards the flag, while also counterintuitive.

Chambers Bay opened with a style and architecture the Seattle area hadn’t seen, and its debut was followed by nearly eight years of reshaping and molding to prepare the infant track for the “toughest test in golf.”

Two things happened shortly after Chambers Bay opened: The USGA awarded it the 2015 U.S. Open, as well as a dress rehearsal pairing of the 2010 U.S. Amateur. From the moment it opened, Chambers Bay was thrown into the USGA ringer to prepare it for a major championship almost a decade away. It’s gone from one short cycle of grooming to a longer cycle of grooming, all while remaining open to the public.

Chambers Bay was putty in the hands of the USGA.

★★★

You’ll hear the word unique locked alongside Chambers Bay throughout the tournament. It’s a smoothed-out way of saying it’s gimmicky or a Mickey Mouse course. This isn’t wrong, either: The idea of Chambers Bay is a gimmick. But it took that idea, a brand new links course built on a gravel pit alongside a rail line, to lure a major championship back to Washington for the first time since 1998.

The brand new part is important. Because Chambers Bay plopped down on a prime piece of real estate that happened to be a quarry, there was no tradition or even firm structure of the course for the USGA to deal with. From the start, USGA executive director Mike Davis and his team have been able to nurture and mold the course to fit what a U.S. Open is.

Even today, Chambers Bay remains brand new to everyone. If you played the course when it opened, after the U.S. Amateur, two years ago, three weeks ago, and on the Monday of tournament week, you’d have seen a very different course each time. There are no traditional hole locations for the tournament, or even past data to look at when mapping out greens ahead of the first round.

This is where the local knowledge comes into play. Because the course has so many different looks and because of how the greens and backstops were built, there’s no library of knowledge built up in the players. They’re like the early adopters were when Chambers Bay opened -- playing essentially blind, figuring it out along the way with, hopefully, the guidance of a caddie.

Even the USGA has been learning the course along the way. The 2010 U.S. Amateur surfaced a few problems; fans breaking and spraining ankles being chief among them. The spectator areas were changed for safety reasons this time around. Then there was the small problem of trying to land approaches to one on a green that played like a tilted asphalt driveway. Turns out it’s not fun to hit a solid shot that bounds away out of view.

As the cherry on top, the course can look completely different on each day of the tournament because of its flexibility. It’s as though, by moving tee boxes and changing angles, Chambers Bay has a few extra holes built in.

The setup plays a key role in how difficult the course will play, and thus how angry the comments will be after each round. It’s not just the ability change par on the first and last holes, though. It’s the ability to change how players approach holes by manipulating the angle of the tee shot and placement of the pin.

The putty that the USGA was given was molded into … meaner putty. Chambers Bay is longer and faster now, but flexible enough to provide different looks and angles throughout the tournament. It was never “done,” but instead will remain a work in progress right up until Sunday morning.

All of this has to be Davis’ dream: A course that not only the USGA had a steady hand to shepherd it from opening to Open, but one that he can control and manipulate every day. The greens are undulating, fast canvases for Davis to blot with pins that can change whether a player uses a backstop or has to run the ball up.

For Davis and for the players, Chambers Bay is a perfect U.S. Open course. It’s going to challenge the field off the tee, while then requiring a precise and thoughtful second shot on a line that may be counterintuitive. It’s a place where a golfer’s imagination can run wild thinking of creative shots to get out of tight situations. Par is going to be a good score, and some days a 75 might feel solid.

If you ignore how it looks and the style of play, Chambers reaches the same conclusion as other U.S. Open courses: A tough test tee to green that requires thinking and creativity. It’s just going to look different getting there.