Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball.
Speaker 2: In a bride egg, Frida Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Friday,
Speaker 2: Frida Egg Egg, Frida Egg, Bride Egg, Lie, I'm about
Speaker 2: ready to run off of the hump. Hello and welcome
Speaker 2: to the Frida Egg Podcast. My name is Garrett Morrison,
Speaker 2: and today we are talking about Chambers Bay in the
Speaker 2: future of USGA venue selection. The us Women's Amateur was
Speaker 2: just held at Chambers Bay this past week and I
Speaker 2: was there for the last day of it. It was
Speaker 2: a delightful experience. So we'll talk a little bit about that,
Speaker 2: but also talk about the general context of venue selection
Speaker 2: for the big championships that the USGA runs, PGA of
Speaker 2: America as well, and where Chambers Bay might fit into
Speaker 2: that and other courses as well. I think it's a
Speaker 2: kind of rich topic right now. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: things happening on that front. But to discuss all of
Speaker 2: that with me today, I have none other than Andy Johnson. Andy,
Speaker 2: how you doing. You're back You're grounded again after an
Speaker 2: active few weeks of travel here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, back at the end laws. So you know
Speaker 1: from live from the in law's basement, just a place
Speaker 1: the podcaster belongs. You know, if you haven't recorded a
Speaker 1: podcast from your own parents' basement or your in lass basement,
Speaker 1: you're not really doing podcasting.
Speaker 2: Right, So the stereotype is true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. How was the weekend You've been on the
Speaker 1: road too, how's the weekend at Chambers?
Speaker 2: It was fantastic. I mean I scheduled this not only
Speaker 2: because I live fairly close. I'm about a two and
Speaker 2: a half hour drive from Chambers here in Portland, but
Speaker 2: also because I remember, I think you and I discussed this.
Speaker 2: I attended that live event in Portland, right, So I
Speaker 2: spent a few days there covering that event. And the
Speaker 2: first thing I did when I came back from that
Speaker 2: when that concluded is I reached out to Julia Pine
Speaker 2: at the USGA. By the way, Julia Pine as good
Speaker 2: at her job as anybody in golf, She's fantastic. Reached
Speaker 2: out to her and said, hey, how about a credential
Speaker 2: to the US Women's Amateur I need a palate cleanser
Speaker 2: after what I've just experienced to live. And it was
Speaker 2: just that it was really wonderful. I wish I had
Speaker 2: gotten to be there more, but we just had a
Speaker 2: trip to Sandhills, the Nebraska Sandhills this past week as
Speaker 2: well that we needed to do, And so I came
Speaker 2: back home on Friday evening and put in an appearance
Speaker 2: at home with the kids a little bit, and then
Speaker 2: left again on Saturday afternoon to get up to Chambers Bay.
Speaker 2: Stayed the night there and was able to be there
Speaker 2: for the entire final match at Chambers Bay between Sake
Speaker 2: Baba and Monet Chun. Now it just lasted twenty seven holes,
Speaker 2: which was a bit of a bummer. I wish it
Speaker 2: had gone the full thirty six, you know, being at
Speaker 2: Chambers during the sunset hours and watching golf what would
Speaker 2: have just been wonderful. But Saki Baba had other ideas.
Speaker 2: She was she was really really dominant on the weekend,
Speaker 2: just a terrific player and uh and so that was
Speaker 2: fun to watch in its own right. But I got
Speaker 2: a good look at Chambers Bay as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what were were your what are your impressions of
Speaker 1: Chambers Bays. It's a place that I haven't been obviously.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed watching the the US Open out there. But
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of on course and off
Speaker 1: course controversy with that one, and uh and uh. I.
Speaker 1: You know, obviously they've put in a lot of work
Speaker 1: since that US opened. They've resotted their greens with a
Speaker 1: POA bent mixture, So the greens were obviously the divisive
Speaker 1: topic among a few other things out there. But how
Speaker 1: how was it?
Speaker 2: Well? It was incredible, But why don't we start with
Speaker 2: like how does it look on TV? You know, the
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen US Open, which which was held at Chambers
Speaker 2: Bay and was pretty controversial, is not one that I
Speaker 2: really watched. I kind of missed that open. What did
Speaker 2: Chambers Bay look like on TV? For that US Open?
Speaker 2: What do you remember of that?
Speaker 1: I mean it was it looked great. I think That's
Speaker 1: always the thing is like when you talk about a venue,
Speaker 1: it's interesting because like there there are so many factors
Speaker 1: that go into it. Is how is it for the competitors?
Speaker 1: How is it for the championship conducting a venue there,
Speaker 1: like in terms of infrastructure everything? How is it for
Speaker 1: the crowds? How is it for you know, people that
Speaker 1: attend and paid ticket, pay for tickets and go and
Speaker 1: then how how does it show on TV. I think
Speaker 1: from the television standpoint, it showed really well, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: any time that you have golf on a body of water,
Speaker 1: that's always going to provide amazing visuals. And then with
Speaker 1: the weather in the Pacific Northwest in the summer, it's
Speaker 1: so predictable that like you know, you're going to get
Speaker 1: a firm tournament and out there the course is designed
Speaker 1: to have balls bounce in and bounce, and that golf course,
Speaker 1: I'll never forget the videos leading in when people are
Speaker 1: bouncing balls, you know, like a basketball on the turf.
Speaker 1: But like that's the thing about that golf course is
Speaker 1: that it I it's hard to look at the leaderboard
Speaker 1: and especially the demands that were placed on competitors in
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen and not think that it deserved another shot
Speaker 1: after if it fixed the greens right, you know, especially
Speaker 1: because like we're not talking, this course isn't in New York.
Speaker 1: This course isn't surrounded by like a plethora of championship
Speaker 1: golf options. This is a golf course in a large,
Speaker 1: huge part of the country that's devoid of championship golf
Speaker 1: but also affords any tournament the excellent primetime viewing for
Speaker 1: the biggest media markets. That's the thing, is, like I
Speaker 1: just like I really wonder, Like, you know, obviously, having
Speaker 1: an event in New York City is great for a
Speaker 1: local market and they can go, but I'd imagine that
Speaker 1: more people from New York City would watch an event
Speaker 1: in Washington because the hours that it would be on
Speaker 1: in a time of the year when there isn't a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff on TV.
Speaker 2: Yeah, West Coast is great for TV viewing across the
Speaker 2: nation basically, right. We hear people say this every time
Speaker 2: there's a tournament in California. Oh, yeah, this is these
Speaker 2: are great hours. This is primetime golf essentially, right, And
Speaker 2: it's just interesting that we haven't seemed to figure out
Speaker 2: a major championship venue in the Pacific Northwest that really sticks.
Speaker 2: You know, There've been a couple of majors at Saholly
Speaker 2: Country Club, which is a really heavily trade courses, very narrow.
Speaker 2: I believe that nineteen ninety eight PGA Championship was held there,
Speaker 2: and you know, it hasn't really made an impression that
Speaker 2: really that course has not found its way into the
Speaker 2: rota for the PGA Championship or the US Open. Pumpkin
Speaker 2: Ridge was another potential major venue. It held a couple
Speaker 2: of US Women's Opens, but never got a US opener
Speaker 2: PGA championship. And now Pumpkin Ridge is fully in the
Speaker 2: hands of Live Golf, right that's now going to be
Speaker 2: what looks like an annual venue, and there's a thirst
Speaker 2: for high level golf in Portland. You know, there's a
Speaker 2: great LPGA Tour tournament, the Cambia Portland Classic, that has
Speaker 2: been held mostly at Columbia Edgewater in recent years, and
Speaker 2: that's a pretty cool venue and it's a very good event.
Speaker 2: There's been a corn Ferry Tour event in Portland that
Speaker 2: was held at Pumpkin Ridge, but that's no longer going.
Speaker 2: And so I think that this region is just underserved.
Speaker 2: I know that everybody feels like their region is underserved
Speaker 2: by golf tournaments, but the Pacific Northwest has two really
Speaker 2: big cities, Portland and Seattle, that have active golf cultures,
Speaker 2: and I feel like it's a missed opportunity not to
Speaker 2: be taking big championships to this region on a regular basis.
Speaker 2: And I believe that Chambers Bay is far and away
Speaker 2: the best candidate for a consistent major Championship venue being
Speaker 2: there for the US Women's Amateur on Sunday. My big
Speaker 2: overall impression of this course, and I think this comes
Speaker 2: through on TV as well. It's this huge arena. Right.
Speaker 2: There's this walking path on top of a bluff that
Speaker 2: overlooks the course, and the course is sort of in
Speaker 2: this bowl that's right against Puget Sound and the railroad
Speaker 2: that runs along the shore of Puget Sound, and so
Speaker 2: when you're in there, when you get up high, you
Speaker 2: can see the whole course and all the action is
Speaker 2: just kind of happening in this huge bowl. Now, a
Speaker 2: little bit of history for this site. The reason that
Speaker 2: the site is shaped in this kind of un unique
Speaker 2: arena like way is that before it was a golf
Speaker 2: course for decades, it was the site of a mining
Speaker 2: operation sand and gravel and stuff like that. And so
Speaker 2: essentially that activity took a huge bite out of this
Speaker 2: piece of land, pushed the big bluff back inland, so
Speaker 2: that it formed this bowl or this arena that the
Speaker 2: golf course now sits in. And I haven't really been
Speaker 2: to a golf course that is quite like this. I
Speaker 2: really can't think of a comparison. You know, it's a
Speaker 2: unique looking and feeling place. It's really really beautiful. The
Speaker 2: views are sensational. I thought it was a great place
Speaker 2: to watch a golf tournament. The architecture of the course
Speaker 2: is also very interesting, and we can get into details
Speaker 2: of that if you want, But as far as the
Speaker 2: spectator experience is concerned, I thought it was fantastic for
Speaker 2: a US Women's Amateur, with everybody kind of walking down
Speaker 2: the fairways without ropes and following the play like that.
Speaker 2: The problem will become for a tournament of the size
Speaker 2: of a US Open, that the galleries are going to
Speaker 2: be pushed to the sides right, and they're going to
Speaker 2: be walking through sand and these these really abrupt, dunelike
Speaker 2: shapes alongside the fairways. And I think at the US
Speaker 2: Open in twenty fifteen that spectators had a hard time
Speaker 2: getting around the course.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of sprained ankles. I believe. I
Speaker 1: think they had to, like eventually like pos strategically position
Speaker 1: paramedics around the course to be able to field all
Speaker 1: the sprained ankles.
Speaker 2: Well. People were eating it constantly out there, even at
Speaker 2: the US Women's Amateur, where there wasn't as much of
Speaker 2: a crowd as there obviously would be for a US
Speaker 2: Women's Open or a US Open. People were falling down
Speaker 2: those dunes a lot because they are pretty sharp, right,
Speaker 2: They have this peak and then they go down.
Speaker 1: Sharply, and the grass is slippery because it's like a fescue,
Speaker 1: So then the grass is especially in the rpprey.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I slipped and fell on my butt like on
Speaker 2: the second whole of the final match, like, and it
Speaker 2: just sort of came out of nowhere. I was going
Speaker 2: down this dune and then all of a sudden, I
Speaker 2: was on my ass, and you look around, and this
Speaker 2: was happening a lot. At one point, I was filming
Speaker 2: the train going by the seventeenth hole just as the
Speaker 2: players were playing. The train kind of comes by on
Speaker 2: that railroad that runs by Puget Sound in between Puget
Speaker 2: Sound and the golf course. It's kind of a cool
Speaker 2: little local color thing. So I was filming the train
Speaker 2: and in the lower corner of my screen, a guy
Speaker 2: just comes tumbling into the frame, you know, falling down
Speaker 2: a dune. I didn't obviously didn't expect or intend to
Speaker 2: catch that, but that was just what was happening. And
Speaker 2: so I think that people who attended the twenty fifteen
Speaker 2: US Open probably didn't have a good on site experience.
Speaker 2: They need to build grandstands there, right. They need to
Speaker 2: set up that site so that it's not as kind
Speaker 2: of walking dependent. It should be a place where you
Speaker 2: can sit and watch, because if you sit in one
Speaker 2: place and you're up you can see a whole lot
Speaker 2: of holes all at once. Get a pair of binoculars,
Speaker 2: you'll be able to see golf pretty much throughout the course.
Speaker 2: There are very few holes that you can't see if
Speaker 2: you're up high enough, and so I think that that's
Speaker 2: got to be the method that they use. But you know,
Speaker 2: for a tournament like the US Women's Amateur, if they
Speaker 2: bring a US Amateur there, I think that it's really
Speaker 2: fun to walk that course and look at the views.
Speaker 2: It's not the easiest walk in the world, but it's
Speaker 2: definitely walkable. It's a walking only course. In fact, when
Speaker 2: during regular play, and I just had a wonderful time
Speaker 2: being there, seeing the sites, watching these great players play
Speaker 2: these holes in a strategic way. I thought it was
Speaker 2: wonderful and I just sort of wished that bigger tournaments
Speaker 2: would come there with more frequency. Now, the reputation of
Speaker 2: the course took a hit in twenty fifteen, not only
Speaker 2: because of the on site spectator experience and what people
Speaker 2: said about that, but also because of the TV watching experience.
Speaker 2: People saw a brown course, heard the players complaining about
Speaker 2: putting on broccoli, which is how Hendrik Stenson put it.
Speaker 2: The greens died basically in twenty fifteen. They screwed up.
Speaker 2: But the course is terrific and I wish that the
Speaker 2: optics weren't such that it's hard to take a big
Speaker 2: championship back there.
Speaker 1: What are your favorite aspects of the golf course.
Speaker 2: It all starts with the firmness of the turf, and
Speaker 2: the holes are designed so that you can use the ground.
Speaker 2: Going into a lot of these greens, there are wonderful
Speaker 2: kind of feeding contours and rejecting contours, so you know,
Speaker 2: depending on the angle that you're approaching a green from
Speaker 2: those contours can either help or hurt you. And when
Speaker 2: your ball lands, it's not going to stay in the
Speaker 2: same place, it's going to run. You know. That's just
Speaker 2: one thing that enhances strategy. There are individual holes out
Speaker 2: there that are just really memorable and stick out immediately.
Speaker 2: I think the variety of the course is outstanding. You
Speaker 2: play that course once and you're probably going to remember
Speaker 2: every hole because you're getting different looks, you know, different
Speaker 2: playing strategies with each hole. The holes really don't blend together,
Speaker 2: which I think is an achievement because the site wasn't
Speaker 2: exactly ideal for golf to begin with. It was this
Speaker 2: kind of mining place, and you know, the mining operation
Speaker 2: had left some really interesting landforms, but it wasn't necessarily
Speaker 2: well suited to the game, and so they had to
Speaker 2: move a lot of dirt around in order to make
Speaker 2: golf work. And I think they did an excellent job
Speaker 2: of creating golf there, making it play well. But also,
Speaker 2: you know, to go on to another subject, the aesthetics
Speaker 2: of the course. They retained some of the industrial look
Speaker 2: of the site in creating the golf course, and so
Speaker 2: I really like how the shapes of the golf course
Speaker 2: remind you in a way not only of kind of
Speaker 2: links golf, irish links golf, big spectacular dunes, but also
Speaker 2: it reminds you of industrial work in a way because
Speaker 2: the dunes are sort of so sharply shaped and and
Speaker 2: they look kind of jagged, and they make you think
Speaker 2: of a big industrial mining operation. Even as it's a
Speaker 2: very playable golf course, so I think the look of
Speaker 2: the course is cool. There are some critiques to be
Speaker 2: made of the architecture out there. I think I should
Speaker 2: mention that it was Robert Trent Jones Junior's firm that
Speaker 2: built this course, and on site supervising the construction was
Speaker 2: Bruce Charlton RTJ two's lead associate, I believe, and j
Speaker 2: Blasi was also very involved in the design and build
Speaker 2: of this course, and so there's a really talented team
Speaker 2: out there. J Blazi in particular has gone on to
Speaker 2: be a very impressive architect in his own right, and
Speaker 2: so they did some really really interesting things out there.
Speaker 2: But there are some other ways in which you can
Speaker 2: critique the course. I would specifically zero in on the
Speaker 2: routing of the front nine, which I think is a
Speaker 2: little bit clunky in some places. There's a big walk
Speaker 2: between the third green and the fourth tee, and whenever
Speaker 2: I see that, I'm just like, you know, for a
Speaker 2: pretty manufactured course, right, for a course where they were
Speaker 2: able to kind of build what they wanted, maybe they
Speaker 2: should have figured out how not to have that big
Speaker 2: walk between the green and the tee on the front nine. Also,
Speaker 2: there's a couple of holes that kind of play straight
Speaker 2: up the hill, the main hill of the site, in
Speaker 2: pretty similar ways. And I think that these were just
Speaker 2: sacrifices that they made in order to make other holes
Speaker 2: on the course work. They were looking to find the
Speaker 2: best and the toughest holes possible, and so the routing
Speaker 2: of the front nine in particular suffers a little bit
Speaker 2: because of that. But the back nine, I think really
Speaker 2: clicks together well, the routing works better. I think that
Speaker 2: is the more consistent nine overall.
Speaker 1: So I think it opens a really interesting conversation because
Speaker 1: I think there's a backlash with Chambers Bay and then
Speaker 1: Aaron Hills, and you know they weren't back to back,
Speaker 1: but close together, brand new golf courses. It was really
Speaker 1: a new trend, a new initiative, a new thought process
Speaker 1: with the US Open.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this was kind of Mike Davis driven, right, Yes,
Speaker 2: was Aaron Hills to twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: Right, so two years after so and you have these
Speaker 1: golf courses that were built, there were no history, and
Speaker 1: they were built with the idea of championship golf and
Speaker 1: US opened specifically in mind. Both of these courses, Aaron
Speaker 1: Hills and Chambers Bay, and I think there was this
Speaker 1: backlash because you know, in the sense of Chambers Bay
Speaker 1: had the putting greens, which was the big issue. I think,
Speaker 1: like the the idea of greens and the sanctity of
Speaker 1: the championship was really like in question was this a
Speaker 1: good championship because it was you couldn't make a putt,
Speaker 1: it was bouncing all around. And then at Aaron Hills
Speaker 1: we had, you know, a par seventy two, which never
Speaker 1: happens in US Opens. The wind didn't blow, and of
Speaker 1: course that kind of plays remarkably harder when the wind blows.
Speaker 1: So you have a par seventy two in sixteen underwins
Speaker 1: and people are like, this is too easy, this is
Speaker 1: too easy. And in both cases I think they got
Speaker 1: tough shakes because a everybody always wants to complain about
Speaker 1: the US Open and the course. That's like an annual tradition,
Speaker 1: and it seems like the USGA is doing all they
Speaker 1: can to stop that, and potentially, you know, in a
Speaker 1: way that makes it a little bit less provocative and
Speaker 1: a little bit less interesting with their setup. But with
Speaker 1: these tournaments, they became kind of like the sacrificial Lamb
Speaker 1: in a way, you know, these golf courses just have
Speaker 1: been you know it ironically, the Aaron Hills is hosting
Speaker 1: the US mid Am this year, a similar thing like
Speaker 1: where this tournament, this course was really groomed, and you know,
Speaker 1: the USGA was very involved in the building of both
Speaker 1: of these courses for championship golf. And here we are,
Speaker 1: you know, five six years later, seven years later, and
Speaker 1: these are hosting you know, not even you know, the
Speaker 1: US Women's Am is a is a high level USGA event,
Speaker 1: but the mid Am you know, kind of a mid
Speaker 1: tier event for Aaron Hills, where you know, it was
Speaker 1: expected kind of if you talked in twenty thirteen about
Speaker 1: each of these courses, both of them were kind of
Speaker 1: Chambers Bay was open at that time, but Aaron Hills
Speaker 1: was It was open also, but undergoing modifications, like these
Speaker 1: courses were expected to host many US Opens and with
Speaker 1: the US Open and the US Women's Open schedule, like release,
Speaker 1: Aaron Hills has a US Women's Open coming in a
Speaker 1: couple of years, but there's very little Chambers Bay and
Speaker 1: Aaron Hills on the schedule otherwise. And these were you know,
Speaker 1: and I think, like you know, if you go back
Speaker 1: in time, and I think the knee jerk reaction center
Speaker 1: around this isn't where I want to win my US
Speaker 1: Open or US Women's Open venues. Matter was the mess
Speaker 1: from players to the USGA, and that got them to
Speaker 1: remove these courses for the most part without history. But
Speaker 1: the reality is it's like, when you think about these
Speaker 1: championships fifty years from now, the only way you get
Speaker 1: history at a venue is if you get to go
Speaker 1: to the venue, you know, And this combined with the
Speaker 1: USGA and the PGA really both major championshipanizations, both organizations
Speaker 1: gobbling up sites, booking out their championship for decades, it
Speaker 1: you know, there's no space for a new venue to
Speaker 1: actually become one of our iconic championship sites. And to me,
Speaker 1: it's kind of short sighted because you know, if you
Speaker 1: go back in history and read what players were talking about,
Speaker 1: what they would say about certain courses when they were
Speaker 1: on the championship schedule in the early nineteen hundreds, for
Speaker 1: the first time, there were a critique. There are players
Speaker 1: that were upset, there were revisions, there were there were
Speaker 1: modifications that happened to these golf courses, but like they
Speaker 1: didn't just get excommunicated from the opportunity to host, and
Speaker 1: especially given Chambers Bay in the location, it just seems
Speaker 1: to be if you're going to have a national championship,
Speaker 1: you have to have a national championship that's hosted in
Speaker 1: the Pacific Northwest. You can't just ignore parts of the
Speaker 1: country and part of that, you know, with the way
Speaker 1: they've booked it out, it's not just the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 1: It's the Great Plains, it's the Midwest, it's the it's this,
Speaker 1: you know, the South has has no you know, there's
Speaker 1: very little venues there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, just to give people an idea of how
Speaker 2: booked the US Open is for one next year, LACC
Speaker 2: Los Angeles Country Club North Course, Pinehurst Number two, twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four, twenty twenty nine, twenty thirty five, twenty forty one,
Speaker 2: twenty forty seven, Oakmont twenty twenty five, twenty thirty three,
Speaker 2: twenty forty two, twenty forty nine, Pebble Beach twenty twenty seven,
Speaker 2: twenty thirty two, twenty thirty seven, twenty forty four. I mean,
Speaker 2: that just doesn't leave much space, and there are other
Speaker 2: courses booked for some of the other years, you know,
Speaker 2: Shinnecock has one coming up in its future. You've said
Speaker 2: this on the Shotgun Start previously. Pebble Beach and Pinehurst
Speaker 2: Number two in particular, those are great courses, Those are
Speaker 2: US Open courses. The US Open should go there, Should
Speaker 2: it go there three times a decade? No, I mean
Speaker 2: that just doesn't leave space for as as you're indicating
Speaker 2: fresh blood to come in. First of all, it also
Speaker 2: doesn't leave space for courses like Shinnecock Hills and the
Speaker 2: country Club and other classic US Open venues that need
Speaker 2: to be visited on a regular basis but can't be
Speaker 2: because they've simply booked up the years so much at
Speaker 2: this point. Now, at first, the idea of these anchor
Speaker 2: sites Pebble Beach, Oakmont and Pinehurst Number two, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of definitive US Open venues being identified as such,
Speaker 2: seemed like a good idea, and I think it is
Speaker 2: a good idea. I think that the USGA deserves some
Speaker 2: credit for leaning into classic courses like these are great,
Speaker 2: great venues for a championship. But maybe we've just gone
Speaker 2: a little bit overboard here by assigning so many future
Speaker 2: US Opens to these This same kind of handful of courses.
Speaker 2: It just doesn't allow other courses to enter the ROTA,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't allow the ROTA to be consistently refreshed.
Speaker 2: I mean it almost makes you consider your mortality, Like
Speaker 2: how old are we going to be in twenty fifty
Speaker 2: four when some of these championships are booked for who
Speaker 2: knows what the world is going to be like then
Speaker 2: why do we need to go that far forward in
Speaker 2: time and dating what US open venues are going to be?
Speaker 1: So you got two dates open in the next you know,
Speaker 1: ten years, and when you look across the next like thirty,
Speaker 1: there are very few dates in there. I mean, Chambers
Speaker 1: Bay probably deserves a second shot, and all indications they
Speaker 1: went and fixed the big problem, right. But the other
Speaker 1: thing that happens is like, hey, what if the greatest
Speaker 1: golf course of the world gets built next year and
Speaker 1: they want to host major championships. Why is it there
Speaker 1: just space?
Speaker 2: There's no room?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know what if it was the greatest
Speaker 1: course that it's built and it's open to the public
Speaker 1: and they have like a great cause behind it, and
Speaker 1: everybody's like, well, we want we got to have a
Speaker 1: US Like what I think the anchor sites and I
Speaker 1: want to be clear, Like you said, this was a
Speaker 1: good idea, but to me, they almost they got a
Speaker 1: little over zealous with how much they went to these
Speaker 1: And like, do I want I want to see pineers
Speaker 1: number two in Pebble Beach once a decade, Yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: but you know when you're looking at once every five years, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean five or six years, it's just to me,
Speaker 1: that's that's a bit over the top. I understand why
Speaker 1: both those courses really want to have it, and I
Speaker 1: think this needs to be pointed out. Like if I
Speaker 1: was operating a golf resort that charged six seven, eight
Speaker 1: hundred dollars for greens fees, you know what I would
Speaker 1: want to do. I want week long commercials where the
Speaker 1: best players in the world game and played my course.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to discredit, you know, these golf courses
Speaker 1: legitimacy for major championships. I think they should have them,
Speaker 1: and they should have them regularly, but I don't think
Speaker 1: these are the courses that should be going that. There
Speaker 1: shouldn't be any US Open courses, given how many good
Speaker 1: venues and how big the country is that get you
Speaker 1: opens every five to six years like that, that's too much.
Speaker 1: And I think that, you know, the ideology between behind
Speaker 1: the anchor sites is like the ability to retain some
Speaker 1: set up, you know, consistency is it's we we know
Speaker 1: we're going back there, so we can do X, Y
Speaker 1: and Z, and we can ask for X, y and
Speaker 1: z from the club, from from the local government. Like
Speaker 1: there are things that make sense with this. But you know,
Speaker 1: when we look back in this, I mean, they announced
Speaker 1: the anchor sites, you know what two years.
Speaker 2: Ago, Yeah, something like that. It was around twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: And I don't think anybody expected at that point that
Speaker 1: they were going to be booked almost completely up through
Speaker 1: twenty fifty, you know that, right, I mean, and then
Speaker 1: you have you have just parts of the country that
Speaker 1: are ignored.
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Speaker 2: the episode, So, what's your interpretation of why the PGA
Speaker 2: of America and the USGA are going so far into
Speaker 2: the future. Is it just kind of like an arms
Speaker 2: race at this point where I think the USGA is
Speaker 2: afraid that the PGA of America is going to book
Speaker 2: whatever course for you know, twenty fifty three. Well we
Speaker 2: better get them, get them for twenty fifty three before
Speaker 2: they do.
Speaker 1: I think it's partly that, right. I think it's there
Speaker 1: are there are very clear lines in the sand, like
Speaker 1: this is a PGA course or a USGA course. I
Speaker 1: guess one of them that that splits kind of the
Speaker 1: bill is an Olympic club because they have PGA stuff
Speaker 1: and USGA stuff. But I think that's the main thing
Speaker 1: is is there there's competition between those two organizations. And
Speaker 1: obviously the PGA, now because it's in May, cannot be
Speaker 1: hosted at a lot of places because of weather, right
Speaker 1: you know, the upper Midwest and which they had really
Speaker 1: gone to a lot, and the Northeast is a little
Speaker 1: bit off limits. So it creates a little bit of
Speaker 1: a you know, And I think that's one of the
Speaker 1: things you could point to is a good thing for
Speaker 1: the Frisco you know course being you know, it gives
Speaker 1: Texas a major every once in a while, which is important, right,
Speaker 1: But I think that's the thing is like it's an
Speaker 1: arms race, and when you book out like this, I
Speaker 1: think what it also does it gives each of the
Speaker 1: organizations leverage over the club slash course that they are
Speaker 1: trying to negotiate with. So if they are booked like
Speaker 1: they are now, they say, hey, we want you to
Speaker 1: host in twenty twenty eight or twenty thirty one and
Speaker 1: here's the deal. This is what we need from you.
Speaker 1: And if you don't take this, well we there's a
Speaker 1: bunch of other courses that we can go to. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: it creates scarcity if you think about it from a
Speaker 1: business sense, right it creates scarcity with your with your vendors.
Speaker 1: So then the vendors have to compete with each other
Speaker 1: for your business. And a lot of these clubs, like
Speaker 1: some of these clubs business models are dependent on high
Speaker 1: level championship golf, like because that high level championship golf
Speaker 1: brings in money that week, but it also spurs a
Speaker 1: lot of organizations wanting to host big money Monday outings
Speaker 1: at their club that flip a lot of bills over
Speaker 1: the years, you know. So like a lot of these courses,
Speaker 1: like championship golf is fundamental just like a resort for
Speaker 1: like the commercial and the local community. And I want
Speaker 1: to host my Monday outing here, not all of them,
Speaker 1: but some of.
Speaker 2: Them, and the bookings so are so far out in advance.
Speaker 2: Creates a situation where if Club X wants to host
Speaker 2: a US Open and twenty thirty seven is the only
Speaker 2: open year between now and twenty sixty then the USGA
Speaker 2: is in a really or the PGA of America is
Speaker 2: in a really strong position to say, well, you've got
Speaker 2: to do these things in order to get that championship,
Speaker 2: and if you don't want to do it, then there's
Speaker 2: plenty of other courses that want that one year, and
Speaker 2: so it kind of strengthens them. But you know, what
Speaker 2: they've had to give up is significant as well. Essentially
Speaker 2: they've had to give up a lot of open dates
Speaker 2: to Pinehurst and Pebble Beach, which maybe wasn't that good
Speaker 2: of a deal for them.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it's the it's the commercialization. I think,
Speaker 1: like a lot of these I think in the last
Speaker 1: twenty years, there's been a big realization, especially with the TV,
Speaker 1: how how TV deals are going with with sports. Right
Speaker 1: these TV deals are getting so big that they realize
Speaker 1: how much money is at stake with these things. And
Speaker 1: that's another part of it, is that they need more infrastructure,
Speaker 1: they need more grand stands, they need a bigger merch
Speaker 1: tent so that it goes to that leverage point where
Speaker 1: we can say we need this, this and this, and
Speaker 1: it's not just the course, it's I mean Mike one
Speaker 1: and Mike Davis have talked about, you know, working with
Speaker 1: the local government and states in order. You know, I
Speaker 1: think there's something they did with Pennsylvania. I can't remember
Speaker 1: exactly off hand, but they have something with with Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: where you know, there's they they're working directly with the
Speaker 1: state to make things happen, which you know, as when
Speaker 1: you start to think about all the needs of a championship,
Speaker 1: I mean, like just think about parking, road closures, all
Speaker 1: these things, Like these championships are really big things to
Speaker 1: put on and they reach far further than just the
Speaker 1: golf course, right, And that might be why there's never
Speaker 1: going to be another one in Olympia Fields. They you know,
Speaker 1: because of how difficult that was in two thousand and three.
Speaker 2: Why was it difficult?
Speaker 1: I just have you know, you you spend enough time
Speaker 1: in Chicago, you hear the stories of working with the
Speaker 1: with the with Cook County, and yeah.
Speaker 2: And that may be part of what's working against Chambers
Speaker 2: Bay at this moment. The local government has a fraught
Speaker 2: relationship with Chambers Bay. And I'm not sure what the
Speaker 2: parking situation or the lodging situation was like in university
Speaker 2: place out there, And I'm sure there may have been
Speaker 2: some issues. So you know, obviously the Pinehurst area has
Speaker 2: been really easy for the for high level tournaments relatively,
Speaker 2: so that's that's part of the reasoning.
Speaker 1: So okay, one question, you know, here's like I just
Speaker 1: I'm going to read off some stuff for you here
Speaker 1: with the women's now like, yes, similarly it's very booked out.
Speaker 1: But the women's open, you have twenty twenty three, twenty
Speaker 1: thirty five, twenty forty and twenty forty eight at Pebble Beach.
Speaker 1: You have twenty twenty four at Lancaster in Pennsylvania, you
Speaker 1: have twenty twenty five at Iron Hill's, twenty six at Riviera,
Speaker 1: twenty seven at Inverness, twenty eight at Oakmont and thirty
Speaker 1: eight at Oakmont, twenty nine at Pinehurst.
Speaker 2: Only twenty twenty nine at Pinehurst. Yeah, that's interesting, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Twenty thirty at interlock In, twenty thirty one and twenty
Speaker 1: forty two at Oakland Hills, and twenty thirty four and
Speaker 1: twenty forty six at Marion. So one of the things
Speaker 1: that immediately jumps out one year at Pinehurst. The other
Speaker 1: thing that jumps out is, you know, you have four
Speaker 1: Pebble Beach years, but they're more paced. Appropriately, You've got
Speaker 1: twelve years between the first playing at Pebble Beach in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three and twenty thirty five. You obviously go
Speaker 1: twenty forty there, so five years, but then another eight.
Speaker 1: So here's like I just think this women's schedule to
Speaker 1: me is actually like kind of put together the way
Speaker 1: you would want to see it. There's there's still some openings.
Speaker 1: I mean there aren't many.
Speaker 2: There's not one twenty twenty thirty two.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, like the pacing of it
Speaker 1: is better.
Speaker 2: You have more courses.
Speaker 1: There's more courses. There's Pinehurst only has one in there,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, if a great golf course
Speaker 1: comes to be, you have open space. There's no reason,
Speaker 1: really none whatsoever for a tournament to be planned out
Speaker 1: to pass twenty thirty one. Right.
Speaker 2: Well, when I was walking around Chambers Bay, the big
Speaker 2: thing I had on my mind was how great a
Speaker 2: US Women's Open would be there. You know, I'm not
Speaker 2: totally sure about a US Open at Chambers Bay. I
Speaker 2: think there's a lot of reasons that maybe that tournament
Speaker 2: wouldn't work quite as well there because of the crowd sizes,
Speaker 2: and because I think that the lengths that the players
Speaker 2: hit the ball now would really come to dominate that course.
Speaker 2: Now it can be a long course. It was plenty
Speaker 2: hard for players in twenty fifteen. Maybe not for all
Speaker 2: the right reasons, but.
Speaker 1: Well, the golf ball might not go as far.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, if there's a rollback, then maybe it comes
Speaker 2: back into the mix. But just you know, the thing
Speaker 2: that makes Chambers Bay special is the play along the ground,
Speaker 2: and I think that that's a little bit more accentuated
Speaker 2: in the women's game. I think it would be a
Speaker 2: terrific us women's open site and I hope that they
Speaker 2: get booked up at one of these open dates in
Speaker 2: the twenty thirties, but there's not an open spot until
Speaker 2: twenty thirty two. And I don't know. It's fine because
Speaker 2: they're going to a bunch of different courses. I love
Speaker 2: seeing Interlocking on there. I love seeing Inverness on there.
Speaker 2: Right Inverness is in that mix. Aaron Hill's a modern.
Speaker 1: Court riviera women at Riviera that's fantastic, awesome, awesome, Like
Speaker 1: you want to talk about West Coast, and I think
Speaker 1: it's a course everybody's so intimate with because of the
Speaker 1: men's tournament every year, but getting a women's Open there,
Speaker 1: I mean fantastic. I don't agree, and I really like
Speaker 1: what they've done, and I think it's very important to
Speaker 1: point out, like they have elevated the venue, the women's
Speaker 1: venues it to a whole different level than if you
Speaker 1: you know, think back, we covered a US Women's Open
Speaker 1: at Champions Golf Course in Houston, like you know, and
Speaker 1: this is not a shot at Champion. It's just you know,
Speaker 1: Champions Golf, Champions Golf Club. It's just it's not Pebble
Speaker 1: Beach or you know, Riviera.
Speaker 2: You know that that has been a big factor in
Speaker 2: the US Women's Open. And also the Women's Open right
Speaker 2: has gone to some odd courses, and we've seen a
Speaker 2: shift there where more kind of really substantial feeling classic
Speaker 2: championship courses are being introduced to those to those rotas
Speaker 2: you know, US Women's Open has been held fairly recently
Speaker 2: at Trump National Bedminster, Court of Owl right or Court
Speaker 2: of All I'm not sure how it's pronounced. And so
Speaker 2: there have been some questionable US Women's Open venues, and
Speaker 2: the future sites here are definitely promising. So that's that's great.
Speaker 1: Say you were say you were John Bodenhamer tomorrow, what
Speaker 1: would be the first thing you change about about venue selection?
Speaker 1: And like, if you could, if you could make any
Speaker 1: tweaks to both venue you know, both women's and men's,
Speaker 1: what would you do? Or say you're Carrie Haig in
Speaker 1: charge of the PGA, what would you do?
Speaker 2: Well, they can't change anything right now, but am I
Speaker 2: imagining that I could change the free ring any deals
Speaker 2: they've made? Well, first of all, just to drive home
Speaker 2: this point, I'm not sure that I'd book any more
Speaker 2: than ten years in advance. And maybe that wouldn't be
Speaker 2: in the best business interests of the USGA or the
Speaker 2: PGA of America, But I think that it really hamstrings
Speaker 2: you if you're booking twenty years in advance, because we
Speaker 2: don't know how the game is going to evolve in
Speaker 2: twenty years. We don't know how these courses are going
Speaker 2: to change over twenty years, and we don't know what
Speaker 2: other courses are going to come online and become, you know,
Speaker 2: really legitimate championship hosts in twenty years. And so I
Speaker 2: think not booking more than ten years in advance would
Speaker 2: be great. I'd love to see Obviously Chambers Bay back
Speaker 2: in the rod to some more modern courses being experimented with.
Speaker 2: Kiawa was a fantastic host, and that's not really on
Speaker 2: the radar for these major championships right now. So that's
Speaker 2: an example of a course that could be introduced. I'd
Speaker 2: love to see the country Club back. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: there's any plans right now to go back to the
Speaker 2: country Club for the US Open or the US Women's Open.
Speaker 1: And I don't you know, I think I don't think
Speaker 1: that club really wants to host a ton.
Speaker 2: So they're not as eager as some of these other clubs.
Speaker 1: If you could get them in like fifteen years. But
Speaker 1: like then you look at the calendar and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: well there's like one or two options there, and then
Speaker 1: we're even more booked out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that just again, this is reiterating
Speaker 2: a point, but I don't think I'd go back to
Speaker 2: Pebble Beach more than once a decade. I don't think
Speaker 2: i'd go back to Oakmont more than once a decade,
Speaker 2: and I wouldn't go back to Pinehurst Number two more
Speaker 2: than once a decade. Even Shinnecock Hills at this point
Speaker 2: is getting a little bit of short shrift with these
Speaker 2: championships because it is booked for twenty twenty six. Maybe
Speaker 2: they just didn't want to negotiate about the twenty thirties
Speaker 2: or twenty forties. But there's nothing else on the books
Speaker 2: for Shinnacock Hills, and that's every bit as iconic a
Speaker 2: US Open and as essential a US Open venue as
Speaker 2: Pinehurst Number two, Oakmont or Pebble Beach, and so that
Speaker 2: one should be a big part of the plans going forward,
Speaker 2: but it's not apparently one of these courses that gets
Speaker 2: the twenty fifties treatment at this point.
Speaker 1: I mean, Wingfoot's not even on here, Yeah, exactly. I
Speaker 1: think that's the crazy And obviously, like there are certain
Speaker 1: areas of the country and like, if I was tasked
Speaker 1: with this, the first thing I'd immediately do is I
Speaker 1: would I would pull out a map and I would
Speaker 1: start to and I'm sure this has been done, but
Speaker 1: I would start to like put down pins on exactly
Speaker 1: where I think viable US Open hosts are and I
Speaker 1: would kind of work from there in building this out
Speaker 1: and making sure that I touch all these areas of
Speaker 1: the country. And I mean, like, I hate the term
Speaker 1: growth the game. But like legitimately bringing the National Championship
Speaker 1: to all parts of the country, it should be a
Speaker 1: pretty important And I know, like you can't go to
Speaker 1: Arizona in June, like so the Southwest and is going
Speaker 1: to be mixed out, and I get that, but like
Speaker 1: getting to and making an effort to get to areas
Speaker 1: of the country. And I am always a proponent of
Speaker 1: best like venues matter, golf courses matter, but in this case,
Speaker 1: like you do need to get to different areas. And
Speaker 1: when you look at this the list, it's it's so geographically,
Speaker 1: you know, constrained to just certain parts of the country.
Speaker 1: And I think that's like the number one thing that
Speaker 1: I think is falling short on because when you bring championship,
Speaker 1: when you bring the National Championship and you rotate it around,
Speaker 1: that's the whole the history of this thing. You should
Speaker 1: try and be making a conscious effort to bring it
Speaker 1: to all the big areas of the country.
Speaker 2: And I think also that championship venue selection can play
Speaker 2: a role in encouraging the advancement of golf course architecture.
Speaker 2: Chambers Bay is a modern golf course. It is a
Speaker 2: different looking and playing type of modern championship venue, and
Speaker 2: I think that that kind of innovation should be encouraged.
Speaker 2: That's part of what drove golf architecture for good or
Speaker 2: for ill for many many decades in the twenties. Look
Speaker 2: at the courses that we're hosting US opens now. Obviously,
Speaker 2: the US Open is on a completely different scale now
Speaker 2: and there are so many other considerations than what the
Speaker 2: USGA in the nineteen twenties had to deal with. But
Speaker 2: the nineteen twenties, that's when you saw Wingfoot introduced, That's
Speaker 2: when you saw Oakland Hills introduced. These were new golf
Speaker 2: courses at the time, and there were energetic architects trying
Speaker 2: to build courses to challenge the best players in the world.
Speaker 2: I think when we book this far in advance with
Speaker 2: golf courses that were built many decades ago, that it
Speaker 2: kind of takes some of the impetus out of golf
Speaker 2: architecture and golf course development, at least this specific genre
Speaker 2: of it, you know. I like when golf architects are
Speaker 2: trying to build something that challenges the best players but
Speaker 2: also suits average amateur players. I think Chambers Bay does
Speaker 2: that really well, and I'd love to see more architects
Speaker 2: try to do this, and you know, having all these
Speaker 2: years be booked up for the US Open and PGA
Speaker 2: Championship might take a little bit of the momentum out
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 1: In both those cases, the developers of Chambers Bay and
Speaker 1: Aaron Hills sought out championship golf because it was available
Speaker 1: to them, and I think now the incentive is not there,
Speaker 1: so there's no you know, there's no reason to try
Speaker 1: and build a championship golf, which leads to as you know,
Speaker 1: you brought this up like a one dimensional kind of
Speaker 1: architecture scene where I think, I I think anybody that's
Speaker 1: listened to this podcast knows that we are all for playability.
Speaker 1: But I think that when you swing the pendulum to
Speaker 1: it's all and only about playability and not about testing,
Speaker 1: I think you've lost the plot a little bit. And
Speaker 1: it's important for golf and shots to have consequence when
Speaker 1: you hit poor shots. And if we swing all the
Speaker 1: way to where it's just about designing for you know,
Speaker 1: too long golf architecture was about designing for pros, but
Speaker 1: it's important to keep them in mind, you know, because
Speaker 1: you want to the best courses stimulate all levels of player.
Speaker 1: And I feel like when you when championship golf isn't
Speaker 1: even considered, what happens is that, you know, there are
Speaker 1: very good players that can play championship golf that go
Speaker 1: and you know, and I think that's just, uh, it's
Speaker 1: something to keep in mind. And championship golf is the
Speaker 1: you know, in being able to host the US Open
Speaker 1: is kind of the allure of a developer potentially going
Speaker 1: down the road of building one of these golf courses exactly.
Speaker 2: Not only individual developers who are just pursuing a business opportunity,
Speaker 2: but Chambers Bay, that project would not have gotten off
Speaker 2: the ground if the possibility of a US Open weren't there.
Speaker 2: Investment is the key word here, Bethpage Black wouldn't have
Speaker 2: gotten that level of investment if the US Open or
Speaker 2: the PGA Championship had not been a possibility for that course.
Speaker 2: And the same with Chambers Bay. I don't think Chambers
Speaker 2: Bay would have been built today because people who are
Speaker 2: making decisions about whether to move that project forward would
Speaker 2: have said, well, if we're gonna get a US Open,
Speaker 2: it's not gonna happen until twenty forty seven or whatever,
Speaker 2: so why should we put this much into this golf
Speaker 2: course and Chambers Bay. You know, I didn't even mention
Speaker 2: how wonderfully woven in it woven in it is in
Speaker 2: its community like that it has beautified that part of
Speaker 2: that town. There are places for kids to play around it,
Speaker 2: they are walking paths through it. It's a whole thing.
Speaker 2: It's a big scene there and it's really improved that place.
Speaker 2: And that investment I don't think would have happened if
Speaker 2: the future landscape of championship golf look like it does now.
Speaker 1: Tory Pines has that too, and I think, like my
Speaker 1: resounding point I think overarching is that you can't become
Speaker 1: a historic US Open venue without the opportunity to host
Speaker 1: US opens. And it feels like that has been removed
Speaker 1: from everybody, you know, in a way, there's no real
Speaker 1: path to it because there are you know, contracts in
Speaker 1: place with with you know, resorts and clubs alike that
Speaker 1: have gobbled up really the all the opportunity to host.
Speaker 2: And that is a something that the organizations like the
Speaker 2: USGA and the PGA of America can keep in mind,
Speaker 2: is how are we incentivizing communities to invest in golf
Speaker 2: and championship venue selection is a big way to do that.
Speaker 2: And right now, I think that the approach to championship
Speaker 2: venue selection has moved away from incentivizing communities to invest
Speaker 2: in golf and has moved towards what are some efficiencies
Speaker 2: for the USGA itself and how can we kind of
Speaker 2: lock in contracts competitively in order to best serve the organization.
Speaker 2: And you know, maybe ultimately that's a good decision, and
Speaker 2: it will enable the USGA to do more things outside
Speaker 2: of championships in order to encourage the the advancement of
Speaker 2: the game and the and the cultivation of the game.
Speaker 2: But man, it just seems like if a Chambers Bay
Speaker 2: project were on the table today, if it if there
Speaker 2: were a possibility that something like this could be built
Speaker 2: in another city, it might not move forward. And I
Speaker 2: think that's that's sort of a bummer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you've hit on like one of the
Speaker 1: most difficult conundrums I would imagine that the USGA finds
Speaker 1: itself in is the delineation between being the governing body
Speaker 1: that's supposed to support all these things and advance the game,
Speaker 1: but also running in a very efficient and profitable business
Speaker 1: even though they're non profit. But like you know, the
Speaker 1: US Open and the US Women's Open. Those are the
Speaker 1: big ticket things that really fund so much of the
Speaker 1: other stuff they do, So that's it's a really tricky situation.
Speaker 1: I do not want that to go unnoticed. Is like
Speaker 1: they're trying to make as much money as they possibly
Speaker 1: can from those so that they can do as much
Speaker 1: with the you know, for other programs as they possibly can.
Speaker 1: And I think that has a lot to do with it,
Speaker 1: Like that is a you know there, that's part of
Speaker 1: why it's so booked out. But you know, you this
Speaker 1: is the thing that you lose when you do that.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, I think that's I think that's the big
Speaker 2: idea that we were working towards there. Andy, thanks for
Speaker 2: chatting with me about this today. And I hope that
Speaker 2: we'll see Chambers Bay on some rota or another soon.
Speaker 2: We didn't really go through PGA championship venues, but I
Speaker 2: don't know if that's a possibility or not. The USGA
Speaker 2: has kind of claimed Chambers Bay, but I'd love to
Speaker 2: see more golf there because it was really fun to
Speaker 2: be there. But in any case, let's wrap it up here.
Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, any thanks. This episode of The Frida
Speaker 2: Egg podcast was edited by meg Atkins. If you're not
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Speaker 2: with writing from Will Knights, Andy Johnson, Brendan Porrath, meg Atkins,
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Speaker 2: thank you for listening, and we'll see you soon.