Chambers Bay: Goat track, equaliser or publicity stunt?
By Tarquin Clark
I have to admit, I could not believe my eyes when I saw the coverage of the first round of the US Open at Chambers Bay. That course looked terrifying. Like the USPGA has mowed a strip of veld the day before, and decided to call it a course. It has to be the least forgiving course I have ever seen. The scorecard told pretty much the same story.
But now for the debate; was it that bad?
From a TV ratings point of view, absolutely not! And let’s face it, with the TV rights costing Fox News $1.1 BILLION (a five year partnership with the USPGA), Fox certainly got their money’s worth. And it’s not like the players are going to leave, I don’t see everyone moving over to the European Tour to boycott the USPGA. A deal with the devil maybe? Time will tell.
It was somewhat refreshing watching pro golfers hack around a course, shooting ten over in a round, it made me feel a great deal better about my game. Impossibly narrow fairways, rough so difficult it would have easier to play out of Velcro, and greens that looked the same as the fairway, in winter!
TV ratings aside, was it a fair contest? I think so. Accuracy and imagination were rewarded, and risk taking was more often than not punished. A slightly poor shot from the tee box or the fairway, or the green for that matter, and a par was almost certainly out of reach. To have a winning score of -5 was actually a pleasant change to the usual -20. And sometimes sportsmen need to be tested. As an ardent cricket fan, Chambers Bay was like batting on day 5 of a Test Match in the sub-continent. It is a huge test of skill. Every delivery faced has the potential to take your wicket. The surface is crumbling, the spinners are lethal, and the batsmen are sweating bullets. But the reward for that, as a batsman, is to make it through the day, save the test. The satisfaction of having weathered the storm is immensely gratifying. That that is what makes a truly great batsman, in his own eyes, as well as the eyes of the fans. It is where respect is earned, temperament is forged, and hearts are won.
So was Chambers Bay that bad of a PGA course? No. That being said, there is absolutely no way in hell that I as a mere mortal would ever play that course.
The only question that still lingers though; was it all about TV ratings? As a pro golfer, that would certainly keep me up at night…