The
New Breed With a group of brand
new — and often strikingly different looking — venues cropping up,
the USGA can look farther afield
to hold its championships.
2008 Championship Annual: The Year In Review
By Dave Gould
 |
| Erin Hills, in rural Wisconsin, already has
held one USGA championship and is in the hunt for a U.S. Open.
(John Mummert/USGA) |
Where we stage our national championships can say a lot about the
state of American golf. On that basis, Feb. 8, 2008, was an exceptional
day.
It marked the awarding of the 2015 U.S. Open to county-owned Chambers
Bay, a windswept, links-like, virtually tree-free golf course on
Puget Sound near Tacoma, Wash. In the same announcement, the USGA
declared that Chambers Bay would host the 2010 U.S. Amateur Championship
and that another daily-fee jewel, Erin Hills in rural Wisconsin,
a half-hour northwest of Milwaukee, would be the site of the 2011
U.S. Amateur. Erin Hills also hosted this year's U.S. Women's Amateur
Public Links Championship, awarded even before the golf course had
opened in 2006.
Two unheard-of golf courses. Two municipal owners. Two U.S. Opens,
an Amateur and the WAPL. The message was clear: The USGA has changed
its thinking.
But think about it, at least in terms of stroke-play national championships.
A U.S. Open, for example, is a drama that unfolds in four acts (and
sometimes in five, as we witnessed at Torrey Pines this year). Without
a striking venue, you might not get the theater such an event deserves.
"Chambers Bay marks the first time that we're taking a U.S. Open
to the Pacific Northwest," says USGA President James Vernon, "and
it is a very special site — an absolutely spectacular site."
Erin Hills and Chambers Bay are stylistically modern by virtue of
their rugged contours and unkempt edges. This visual panache, along
with their public-access status, exemplifies the "new breed" of
courses that the USGA is considering for its championships.
The announcement also came as city owned Torrey Pines in San Diego,
Calif., and the Black Course at New York's Bethpage State Park were
preparing to serve as venues for the 2008 and 2009 U.S. Opens. "Most
of the golf played in the U.S. is played on public courses," says
Vernon. "These are courses that you and I can play, and then sit back
and watch the world's best golfers play. That adds a dimension."
Inspired venue choices, it turns out, beget further inspirations.
Pierce County, Wash., Executive John Ladenburg claims he would never
have decided to pursue construction of Chambers Bay — the site previously
was a quarry dating back to the 1880s — had he not witnessed the 2002
U.S. Open encamped on the government-owned fairways of Bethpage State
Park.
Another reason the USGA can look for more examples of the new breed
is that, as adaptability and problem-solving skills improve, remote
but enticing places such as the tip of Long Island (Shinnecock Hills)
and the Carolina Sandhills, where Pinehurst No. 2 made a thrilling
locale for the 1999 and 2005 U.S. Opens and will reprise that role
in 2014, have become approachable.
For decades, private clubs offered not just standout golf course design
(still the number one reason to go anywhere, of course) but superior
management practices as well — which means the USGA can take its championships
to a municipal or daily fee course and find a skilled staff observing
high operational standards.
Because it conducts a baker's dozen of national championships, the
USGA is a constant clearinghouse of ideas, hunches and inspirations
for where championship golf ought to be played and how a given course
or community would respond to the challenges and opportunities a big
event would pose. A course that submits an invitation for one championship
may not be a good match for what that event needs — because of the
size of the field, or the type of lodgings, or some other detail —
but it could be perfect for another championship.
But one thing is clear: With a new breed of golf courses in the country,
and a new way of thinking, the possiblities are boundless.
David Gould is a freelance golf writer based in Connecticut. This article first appeared in the 2008 Championship Annual,
a special publication mailed to USGA Members in November.