In 2015, the 115th US Open Championship will move to the Pacific Northwest for the first time as Chambers Bay will be the third municipally owned facility to host the national championship of the United States! The other two are Bethpage in New York and Torrey Pines in California. Designed by Robert Trent Jones II, Chambers Bay is more of a non-traditional venue for the US Open as it is a links style golf course, more similar to the courses found on the coast of Scotland and Ireland!
Located in University Place, one hour south of Seattle, Chambers Bay provides a spectacular view of Puget Sound and the surrounding Olympic Mountains. As stated on the website, “Chambers Bay was designed to encourage the imaginative and creative shotmaking that epitomized links golf.” This will surely test the professionals in the 2015 US Open Championship! In an interview with Golf.com, Executive Director of the USGA, Mike Davis, says that with Chambers Bay, “it’s about playing on a course that’s new, that’s built on sand. We have never played on fine fescue putting greens. These players, unless they’ve gone to Bandon Dunes, they will have never played on fine fescue. It looks like it wouldn’t putt well, but it does. The ball doesn’t hop on it. And you can turn the irrigation off and it doesn’t die. It goes dormant.”
The US Amateur Championship was held at Chambers Bay in 2010 and the USGA gained a ton of knowledge and experience in how to properly prepare the golf course! But before the 2015 US Open, we will be fortunate enough to be playing Chambers Bay on Sunday, May 19th! We are looking forward to it and can’t wait! And as for the countdown to the start of the US Open at Chambers Bay, 759 days to go!
Source: Chambers Bay Golf, Golf.com
