Imagine visiting the Louvre only to find the painting of the Mona Lisa covered by a tarp. Or a family vacation tainted by a brick wall obscuring the vistas of the Grand Canyon.
That's kind of what it felt like last Friday morning when I pulled into the parking lot at Chambers Bay Golf Course just outside of Tacoma, Wash., and found some of the most picturesque scenes in all of golf shrouded in thick fog.
"Not the best day to take photos, is it?" said Class A superintendent David Wienecke, CPAg, as he greeted me in the parking lot before our almost two-hour tour of the Robert Trent Jones II-designed, links-style layout. He was right; it wasn't a great day for photos, as the handful of shots included with this post can attest. Still, after traversing the course with Wienecke, inspecting some of the tweaks that have been put in place for this month's U.S. Amateur and, ultimately, the 2015 U.S. Open, and generally getting an up-close-and-personal look at one of the country's finest new courses, I can confidently tell you this — even a thick fog couldn't take the shine off one of the most unique facilities I have ever visited.
The story of Chambers Bay has been repeated often throughout the golf industry; the site of a sand and gravel mine for more than 200 years, the location was purchased by Pierce County, Wash., with an eye on turning the land along Puget Sound into a recreational haven for its residents. At the center of the resulting 930-acre park is the golf course, one of America's few full-fledged links layouts (wall-to-wall fescue) carved among dramatic sand dunes (most man-made) with stunning views of nearby islands and the Olympic Mountains ... when they're not hidden by fog.
Almost immediately after it debuted, plaudits began to roll in proclaiming Chambers Bay as one of America's finest new courses. Just eight months after it opened, it was awarded both this year's U.S. Amateur and the 2015 U.S. Open, an absolute rarity for the USGA, which until only recently has focused almost exclusively on the old and the traditional as hosts for its showcase event. And if that wasn't enough, there's this — Chambers Bay is a public facility, open to any and all paying customers interested in tackling the 7,500-yard, walking-only course.
Wienecke, a former USGA Green Section agronomist who joined the operation in July 2006 just after construction had commenced, seems a perfect fit to lead maintenance at a place such as Chambers Bay. A native of Eugene, Ore., and a graduate of Washington State in nearby Puyallup, the 15-year GCSAA member is Pacific Northwest through and through. He's soft-spoken and studious, and an unabashed vocal proponent for the work of his staff — at one point during our conversation, Wienecke got mildly choked up describing the work of his crew during a recently completed bunker renovation project that touched all 92 acres of bunkers on the property.
Over the next several years as things ramp up toward the 2015 Open, you'll learn much more about Chambers Bay, its maintenance practices and its preparations for hosting the biggest event in golf in the pages of GCM. But in the meantime, a few more interesting tidbits I picked up during my visit:
- The golf course itself takes up 250 acres, which is nearly three times the space taken up by an average 18-hole layout.
- Until the last 12 months, the sand dunes around the property were largely devoid of any grasses. At the request of the USGA, the maintenance team has been hydroseeding those areas with a mix of sheep, red and hard fescues. The hope is the grasses on those areas will lend definition to the dunes and provide a color contrast to spectators and TV viewers at home for both the Amateur and Open.
- Wienecke trades intel from the links-course trenches with his cohorts down the coast at Bandon Dunes, another famed home to American links golf. Interestingly, both facilities are managed by Kemper Sports.
- Until recently, Chambers Bay utilized only two mowing heights, one for the greens and one for, well, pretty much everything else. There was no rough on the course; the fairway cuts ran directly into the base of the sand dunes. That has changed some recently — at the request of the USGA, some rough height cuts have been added — but from what I can see, they aren't intrusive and don't take away from the overall aesthetics of the course.
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