Jones says that he’s most interested to see how players handle the uneven lies they’ll face on the new tee boxes, and to “watch their face when they realize that a hole is 100 yards different today than it was the day before.” He gives the European players — particularly reigning champion Martin Kaymer — an edge, given their experience on fescue, but says that any player who has made a point of studying the course in the months before the tournament, and playing multiple practice rounds, will have a significant advantage over those whose first glimpse of Chambers Bay comes the week of the Open.
“I heard that Graeme McDowell was going to play Bandon Dunes in preparation for Chambers Bay, and I thought, ‘Why would you do that?’” he says. “I recall that David Chung, a Stanford player, made a point to study the course and ask me for advice before the 2010 U.S. Amateur, and he did very well. (Chung lost in the finals to Peter Uihlein.) You have to learn how to play Chambers Bay.”
He’s also hoping for a little wind — and maybe even a splash of rain — just to see how the changing weather affects the decisions that players must make on every single shot.
“I’m hopeful to see players think on every tee,” he says. “They have to choose the right shot, commit to it, and then execute it — or I’m in their backswing.”
Like any great composer, Jones will be in the front row throughout the week, eager to see how the world’s greatest players of his unique kind of music interpret his carefully crafted notes.
“To have the USGA acknowledge this course as worthy of our National Championship — it’s the first wholly original course since my father’s Hazeltine National in 1970 to host an Open — is something I’m very proud of. I expect to enjoy everything about it.”
God must have a sense of humor. It’s the only way to figure, really, that the crowning achievement of Jones’ solo design career — what he calls “an Academy Award for a life’s work” — comes with a tournament that, at least by reputation, is more RTJ than RTJ II. It’s the elder Jones who is supposed to craft the long, challenging courses, those that would be deemed worthy of hosting the U.S. Open, known primarily for being the toughest golf tournament in the world.
Perhaps, though, that’s what makes this tournament so meaningful for Jones. A U.S. Open — that famous 1951 affair at Oakland Hills — made the elder Jones’ career, and launched the era of “bigger, longer, harder” courses. At the age of 75, this year’s U.S. Open won’t so much make Bobby Jones’ career as it will validate what he’s been trying to prove for 50 years — that a golf course designed for the public, that is affordable, that allows the land to shape the holes, and that challenges golfers mentally much more than it does physically, can host America’s greatest golf championship.
“My father’s remodel of Oakland Hills was a game-changer,” Jones says. “What I hope is that many people will see that Chambers Bay is another paradigm shift for the game. As an Open, it’ll either be mimicked, or mocked, or both, but I’m confident that it’s going to be a real eye-opener.”