If Jones is the composer of the symphony that is Chambers Bay, then Mike Davis is the conductor. The USGA’s Executive Director, it’s up to Davis to decide how to interpret Jones’ work — where to place the tees and pins, and how to shape each hole to best challenge the world’s top golfers this June.
Long before shovels were ever put in the ground, Davis — at the time the USGA’s Director of Rules and Competitions — was in close conversations with Jones and his team of architects, helping to craft a course that would be worthy of a U.S. Open. Like Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg, Davis shared Jones’ vision from the start, and has had a heavy hand in the many changes that have occurred since the course first opened in 2008.
Some of those changes — like removing the second, shorter green on the fifth hole; expanding waste areas in certain parts of the course; and altering the green surfaces on the 1st, 7th and 13th holes — are permanent, part of what Jones calls the constant evolution of a golf course. (“They’re still making changes to Augusta National,” he notes.) Others, like the addition of acres of rough that were not part of the original design, and that pesky bunker on 18, could potentially be rolled back once the Open passes through.
“The players are the musicians,” Jones says, continuing the analogy from earlier. “After the Open, they may want to play something a little easier than Beethoven’s Fifth. I would probably recommend that, in the players’ interest, they remove some of that rough, if not all of it. We just did that at Poppy Hills, and it’s been extremely popular. If it’s firm and fast, then it’s fun. You’re not going to lose golf balls, and you’ll also keep pace of play moving — and that’s the future of our game.”
The immediate future, though, is the Open, and every change — both permanent and otherwise — has been made with this one week in mind. Listening to Jones talk about the Open, you can see how his vision will play out.
The first few holes will serve as the prelude, allowing golfers to sample the movements to come — the tall dunes at No. 1, the large waste bunker at No. 2, and the Redan-style green at No. 3, where golfers begin to learn that Chambers Bay’s greens are not always best attacked head-on. The fourth hole, a par-5 that will play as a par-4 during the U.S. Open, is where the players will have to make their first significant strategic decision.
“Suddenly, you see the vast, sandy wastelands defending the shot,” Jones says. “If they play the direct line, they can cut off 50 yards, but they’ll have a very uneven lie. If they play to the left, where there is a flat lie, they’ll have added distance and a more difficult approach angle to the green. Now, suddenly, the whole thing about tactics comes into play, and the character of the course comes alive.”
The fifth hole has undergone some of the most significant changes. Gone is the intriguing second green, which was meant to be played occasionally as a short par-4. (“It was interesting, it was kind of funky, but it wasn’t anything the players ever fell in love with,” Jones says.) In its place, the fairway has been significantly narrowed, with waste areas and rough expanded on both sides to pinch the fairway at the 300-yard mark and force players to think before pulling out driver.
“The Bubba Watsons of the world will certainly have to think off the tee,” Jones says of No. 5. “We’re not telling him he can’t hit driver, it just has to be a perfect driver. When the ball lands on the hard, fast fescue, it will roll another 30 yards, and if it’s off by just one or two percent, it’ll roll right into the sandy waste.
“Most of the young ‘limberbacks,’ as I call them, have just extraordinary swing mechanics and are so athletic and focused, that on a tee shot they just hit it as far as they can,” he continues. “That will not work at Chambers Bay. You have to think on the tee itself.”
If you’re looking for the holes that will separate the contenders from the rest of the pack, Jones says to keep your eye on the four-hole stretch from No. 4 to No. 7. All four will be tough par-4s, with the seventh likely to the prove the toughest. A cape hole, with a fairway that bends left to right around a large, sandy waste, it’s a hole that will dare players to cut off as much of the bunker as they can to avoid playing a long second shot uphill to a two-tiered green. Players who hit the ball too far, though, could wind up playing their second from either of two large, grassy hummocks, or from the far side of the fairway, either way resulting in a blind shot to one of the trickiest greens on the course.
“You have to get over the sand, but also stop your ball from running through the fairway behind the hummocks,” Jones says. “Again, it’s about distance and control, not just distance.
“If you get through those four holes in one- or two-over par, you’ve done well, even at championship level,” he adds. “If you’re at even par, you’re ahead of the field.”
The next six holes represent the woodwinds, a softer interlude where golfers can win back some of the strokes they might have dropped — the par-5 eighth, the par-3 ninth (which, with a new lower tee, can be played as a drastically downhill par-3 or a slightly uphill par-3), the par-4 10th (“The hole that everyone falls in love with,” Jones says. “It reaches your golfing soul.”), the par-4 11th, the reachable par-4 12th, and the par-4 13th.
That’s when golfers will start to hear Jones’ trumpets blare.
“Now, you’re up on top of the course, and this is where the game really begins,” Jones says.
Fourteen is a majestic downhill par-4 played over “Bobby’s Bunker” in the middle of the fairway, to a green that slopes right to left. Fifteen is the Kodak moment, a postcard-perfect par-3 that can play anywhere from 100 to 200 yards — the latter distance using a tee built east of the tee at No. 12, requiring golfers to tee off over the No. 12 tee box. Sixteen will play as a drivable par-4, challenging golfers to skirt the sandy waste to the right, while No. 17 is the toughest par-3 on the course when played from the lower tee, requiring a 200-yard carry over sand to a challenging green — particularly when the pin is tucked along the railroad tracks on the right side, as it will likely be on Sunday.
That brings golfers to the 18th tee box, which will be set up some days as a par-4, and others as a par-5. The hole has undergone significant changes in recent years, with waste bunkers drawn in to pinch the fairway in the pros’ likely landing zones, and the tee box extended to a full 100 yards.
“Part of the reason we wanted to put the tee forward there and play it as a par-4 on some days is that Mike Davis said that a U.S. Open has never been won with a birdie on the 72nd hole. (In fact, Bobby Jones won the 1926 U.S. Open with a 72nd-hole birdie, the only time a player has ever birdied 18 to win by one stroke.) So I’m just guessing that he wants that to be a par-4 on Sunday, for that reason.”
The last obstacle players will face is the one that gave Jones the most heartburn, the one that flew in the face of his entire design philosophy — the bunker that Chambers Bay caddies have come to refer to as “Chambers Basement.” It’s 11 feet deep, sits 80 yards from the 18th green, and will be a nightmare for any player who finds it — but will certainly make for riveting television.
“I’m an artist, and I’m a professional, so when we have these debates, I voice my opinion, but essentially, he’s the client, when it comes to the Open, and I think he’s done a spectacular job,” Jones says of Mike Davis. “The only place we didn’t agree was on that bunker. We built it four or five feet deep, and he said, ‘Double it,’ so we went to eight feet and he said, ‘Add more.’ There’s a famous picture of him and me in the bunker, and I have my thumbs down, and he has his thumbs up.
“The point is, we don’t always agree, but he’s the emperor, and I’m just the emperor’s sword.”