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CHAMBERS BAY
PAR 3 172 YARDS
University Place, WA
253.460.4653
www.chambersbaygolf.com
Eight months after it opened in 2007, Chambers Bay was awarded the 2015 U.S.
Open. Not only the first course in the Northwest to host a U.S. Open, it's also only
the third municipal course and the first built in almost 50 years to snag one—an
unprecedented feat. The course proved worthy during the 2010 U.S. Amateur, and
has since offered casual golfers the chance to play the same holes as Tiger Woods
and Rory McIlroy.
The 15th is the most recognizable golf hole in the state of Washington, with stunning
views of Puget Sound, McNeil Island, and the Olympic Mountains in the distance.
To make it even more unforgettable, it's home to the Lone Fir, a symbol as iconic to
Chambers Bay as the lighthouse is to Scotland's Turnberry Resort. While Chambers
Bay is just beginning to establish the championship pedigree of other US Open sites,
it has its own history as a 100-year-old sand and gravel mine. Even the tree has a
story, having been vandalized in 2008 by an unknown intruder.
The hole sits like a postage stamp above the railroad tracks—but don't assume that
the shortest par 3 on the course is also the easiest. With most play coming from about
120 yards, the hole demands a crisp shot into the wind, favoring the left half of the
green even when the pin is to the right. There is a slope left of the green that can feed
balls to the hole, a trick which led to a dozen holes-in-one during the course's first
five years, two of which came on successive swings in the same group. If the pin is
on the right, beware: a tongue of green laps down toward the giant waste area. Snap
a picture, grab your wedge, note which way the wind is blowing, wonder what Tiger
Woods would do, and enjoy one of golf's great new holes.
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Photograph by Martin Miller
