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April 2008
Chambers Bay Update:
April News & Reviews
By David Wienecke,
Certified Professional Agronomist
Chambers Bay Golf Course Superintendent
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Course condition
April kicks off our focus on course preparations aimed at hosting the 2010 US Amateur and 2015 US Open championships after spending the last week of March with the USGA at Chambers Bay. The time we spent with the USGA gave us all clear goals to work on for the future to be ready to welcome the world to Chambers Bay in August, 2010 and June, 2015. Plan now to play the course that will have the world's greatest golfers follow in your footsteps.
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Championship Preparations
The following outline some of the items discussed with the USGA for Chambers Bay hosting these major championships.
- Bunkers – Our bunker edges will be recontoured and in some cases deepened to bring a more links style look and feel to the course.
- Dunes – We are experimenting with new seeding rates, fertilizer, and supplemental irrigation to find the best way to develop a more uniform tall turf cover to complete the dunes ecosystem.
- Rough turf – Chambers Bay presently has two types of playable turf: a) putting green turf and b) playable turf mowed (i.e. tees and fairways). Chambers Bay does not currently have a rough turf since the playable turf transitions immediately to the tall and wispy dune grass. We have begun gradually raising the mowing height in selected areas to begin to grow rough turf. Our tall playable turf experiment this spring will show how long it will take us to get to the 2” rough height planned for the 2010 and 2015 Championships.
- Putting greens – The USGA’s Mike Davis told us that Chambers Bay will host the first modern major championships to be played on pure fescue greens as far as he knew anywhere in the world. Chambers Bay offers an authentic links golf experience on the shores of beautiful Puget Sound.
- Course play options - Many golf courses that host major championships such as the US Amateur or the US Open prepare their course by growing tall dense rough to narrow fairways, develop fast smooth greens, and play tees as far back as possible to provide the most challenging course play possible. Chambers Bay will be a unique championship venue because of the variety the course provides for setting up multiple hole distances during each flight of the championship play series. The combination of over 11 acres of teeing ground, 90 acres of bunkers, and the firm links- land style fescue course will provide a different course to play in the authentic links style course. Chambers Bay will place a premium on both accurate shot making and ball distance placement giving the player much to consider for each shot of each hole during the round.
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Environmental Stewardship Update:
- Due to the extensive focus placed on environmental stewardship at Chambers Bay we are hoping these championships will provide us the opportunity to be the first Green US Amateur and US Open in history. Bruce Murray, vice president for Chambers Creek Foundation and a member of the Chambers Bay Turf Care team is very involved with the work of the Chambers Creek Foundation. The Chambers Creek Foundation has begun planning the Environmental Education Center to help educate and promote the environmentally friendly aspects of the development of the Chambers Creek Properties that of which Chambers Bay is only 250 acres of the total 950 acre property. Stay tuned for more about this in the future. Welcome to Chambers Bay!
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