Chambers Bay course blog - greens

spud3 · August 25, 2017

New blog started on the Chambers Bay site that is agronomy-oriented, and goes into some details about their greens and the types of grasses involved in the 'transition.'

https://www.chambersbaygolf.com/course-blog/

Edaw68 · August 25, 2017

No mention of "dirt" and how it fits into the mottled look. A buddy of mine played there about 3 weeks ago and reported multiple greens that are literally dirt. He's a big fan of Chambers and was very disappointed.

JMO TO · August 25, 2017

The USGA and US Open did this course such a disservice, and I think it would have been better off without them/it. Played there 2 years before the Open and thought it was a great track, but looking around thought "there is no way they can host a tournament here". The fact several of the holes couldn't even have spectators due to the severe slopes was pathetic. When I was there, the greens were lush and rolled great. Have the greens been struggling like this since the USGA tried to force "open" stimp speeds?? Sad.

mallrat · August 26, 2017

The USGA and US Open did this course such a disservice, and I think it would have been better off without them/it. Played there 2 years before the Open and thought it was a great track, but looking around thought "there is no way they can host a tournament here". The fact several of the holes couldn't even have spectators due to the severe slopes was pathetic. When I was there, the greens were lush and rolled great. Have the greens been struggling like this since the USGA tried to force "open" stimp speeds?? Sad.

From my understanding (have a source very close to the situation) it had nothing to do with the green speeds. Poa started coming in a year or so after the course was built so they replanted the greens. Then the same thing happened and instead of embrace the Poa and spend a couple years getting the greens ready, of which Poa greens can actually be very nice, they made them fight and tear out the Poa. So the Open suffered from them aggressively trying to remove the Poa and the fescue never grew back.

My boss is very good friends with the guy who was the Super during the open and had been telling them for years to let the greens go to Poa then got fired because he couldn't fight off the Poa