Year-long bracket contest concludes with 2015 U.S. Open host earning a narrow victory over Walla Walla’s Wine Valley
In the end, it was a battle of the links.
For all of our pride in the natural Puget Sound beauty — our snowcapped mountain peaks and towering old-growth forests — when it comes to golf, Cascade Golfer readers were clear: get those trees out of the way.
Chambers Bay and Wine Valley, two courses with one tree between them (and one that’s blissfully out of play, at that), were selected as finalists in the 2012 Muckleshoot Casino Match Play Madness, our year-long quest to crown the No. 1 golf course in the state of Washington.
And when the voting closed Monday, it was Chambers Bay — host of the 2010 U.S. Amateur, 2015 U.S. Open and several of our own Cascade Golfer Cup tournaments — which grabbed 55 percent of the votes cast online at CascadeGolfer.com to edge its Eastern Washington linksland sibling and claim the crown as Washington’s top daily-fee golf course.
“That’s exciting news,” said Chambers Bay general manager Matt Allen, who said he had followed the contest closely since the initial publishing of the bracket in the April issue of Cascade Golfer. “I think the Cascade Golfer readers did a great job of identifying the best courses in each region, and we’re honored they’ve picked us No. 1.”
The contest began in April, when 32 courses were seeded into four regions — North, Peninsula, Central Sound and Destination. Voting was conducted online by Cascade Golfer readers and users of CascadeGolfer.com throughout the year, with each round’s results published in the following issue of Cascade Golfer.
Remarkably, Chambers Bay was nearly knocked out of the contest altogether in the quarterfinals, coming from behind to beat third-seed Washington National Golf Club by a single vote. The University Place course made easier work of eighth-seed West Seattle Golf Course, fourth-seed The Home Course and Peninsula region champion Gold Mountain Olympic on its path to the final pairing, where it initially trailed Wine Valley through the first month of voting before surging to the finish following the publication of Cascade Golfer Winter issue earlier this month.
Chambers Bay (Central Sound), Wine Valley (Destination), Semiahmoo Golf & Country Club (North) and Gold Mountain’s Olympic Course (Peninsula) were each selected as regional champions. Final Four voting was conducted live at the Muckleshoot Casino on Oct. 6, at which time the final pairing was announced online and final-round voting commenced.
In the eight months since the contest began, we’ve had a blast following along with our readers, who combined to cast nearly 20,000 individual online votes, including contributions from as as far away as Spain, Argentina and Japan.
So what do you think? Did your fellow CG readers hit a hole in one, or was your favorite course left behind in a hazard? And more importantly, what kind of contest would you like to see us run next year? We had so much fun following the Match Play Madness results, we’re itching to do something similar again in 2013. Let us know what you think, and if we choose your idea, we’ll send you and a playing partner out to one of our premier Puget Sound tracks.
Until then, congrats to the champion — Chambers Bay, wear the crown well.
