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Golf notes: Opens aplenty
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To follow up on the previous Nick Taylor/Ryan Moore item, there's more golf to be blogged. After all, this is golf season. I don't pretend to know the game as thoroughly as Tony Dear, the examiner.com golf writer on this Seattle site. He has played the game at a high level and knows his stuff. I'd encourage you to read him on a regular basis. I'd just like to augment what he does and perhaps re-emphasize some points.
As most of you know, there will be two 'major' golf competitions in the Seattle area next summer, one senior and one amateur. After an eternity without any participation in any significant competitions, the Northwest was given the PGA Championship at Sahalee in 1998. That same course will host the U.S. Senior Open July 26-Aug. 1, 2010. The other big-time event will be the U.S. Amateur played at 2-year-old Chambers Bay course in University Park on Aug. 23-29.
Sahalee should have been given the 2010 U.S. Open but that was mysteriously pulled from the course and given to Whistling Straits in Kohler, Wisc. The feeling is the the Senior Open is an appeasement. Nevertheless, it should draw a good crowd – an estimated 125,000 fans – because it will be the first year that Seattle native Fred Couples will be eligible for the 50-over tour.
The event could generate as much as $30 million for the local economy and the region will be showcased with four days of television coverage.
The PGA also has deal that it says it never offered previously. You can buy tickets for the Senior event then – in six years – be on a list to buy tickets for the 2015 U.S. Open at Chambers. The U.S. Open always sells out so those in line are guaranteed tickets. It's an offer that ends on June 30 so you might want to look into it.
Just three weeks later, the Amateur will be played at Chambers, about eight miles west of I-5 on the Sound. The event will be a first for the region. It will be played on the links-style course that wasn't even a year ago when it was awarded both the Amateur and the Open..
But there is much to be done before the Amateur. I played Chambers last week and it was in the best shape I've seen since it opened. It is designed to be the first Open played entirely on fescue grass, but there were early problems with the greens. They were extremely slow and the grass tended to die out. They had to be sanded weekly and that really affected the ball path, making them frustrating to play.
But they are healthier now, a little faster and vibrant. There are also other significant changes going on. After my round, I talked to the course general manager, Matt Allen.
“Maturity is a big part of it. Fescue takes longer,'' Allen said of the improved greens. “As things get drier and leaner this summer I think you'll see the speeds change even more dramatically than they already have. They have improved at least a foot on the stimp in the last three weeks. Another foot and we don't need any more.''
He said the Brandon Dunes agronomist visited recently and he said they are on the same pace as the early developing Brandon courses. “He felt really good about what he saw,'' Allen added. “I feel really good that we're stabilized.''
There are other changes, including nine new tee boxes. The new tees will be on holes 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 15 and 17. They will add an average of 24 yards per hole to bring the course length to 7,764 yards at the tips.
The par-5, 554-yard No. 4 hole also is undergoing a huge overhaul. The green is being widened and flattened. Previously, balls above the hole would invariably roll off the front of the green and into the waste area.
“It's probably 30-plus percent bigger and less undulation as well,'' Allen said. “A lot of the slope in that last 70 yards have just been softened. The general design is the same. It's 'turn down the volume' just a little bit so that it can be firm and fast championship conditions. You won't have balls coming off the far left slope all the way across the green and into the bunker.''
Right now there is a temporary green well in front of the re-construction. It plays as a par-4. Allen said the green will be re-seeded in the next few weeks and may not be ready for play until the Amateur. I don't know how Allen feels about that, but it makes me a little nervous.
BOEING FIELD GROWING
Seattle's only regular tour stop, the Champions Tour Boeing Classic at the TCP Snoqualmie Ridge, can be overlooked during this time of planning and anticipation for the Opens to come. But it still draws well. It's a fun walk. It's much more casual and easier to get close to the participants. It will be there - hopefully - when the others have come and gone.
This year the tournament will be Aug. 24-30. Fred Funk and his son Taylor have been announced as the hosts of the Charles Schwab Youth Golf Clinic on the Tuesday before the start of the tournament.
Among the golfers committed to play are the eternal Gary Player, Andy Bean, Bernard Langer, Jeff Sluman, Scott Simpson - Bill Murray's favorite golfing partner - David Eger, Tom Kite, Denis Watson and Sandy Lyle , among others.
You have to love the raucous Canyon Club crowd overlooking No. 14.
WRITING CLINIC
For those interested in sports writing or simply enjoy reading about sports, see if you can find the June edition of Golf Digest. There is a section on the U.S. Open writting by longtime respected golf writer Dan Jenkins. He is an author of several books and has an exception gift for prose.
In honor of Jenkins covering his 200th career Major, the magazine selected portions of many of his Open stories. The guy can write. He's imaginative. He's clear. He's funny, sharp witted and even a bit cruel. But he gets to the essential element of the story in ways I can only imagine. It makes me wonder if I'm in the same business.
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