From Tree to Greens, a US Open Unlike Any Before - New York Times
This is a story about countless blades of grass, a single tree and a freight train.
Combined, the three will make the 2015 United States Open next week at the Chambers Bay Golf Course in Washington State unlike any played in the previous 120 years of the tournament.
The grass is a daring biological experiment. The tree, the only one on the golf course, survived an attack by a drunken, ax-wielding vandal. The train’s rumbling locomotive thunders past several holes 60 times a day, figuratively staring down golfers preparing to hit tee shots.
Together, they will make up the landscape, the view and the soundtrack of the United States Open’s first trip to the Pacific Northwest.
The Tree
Before it was a golf course, the property that is now Chambers Bay was a wasteland of rugged vegetation, knotty buttes and vast pits left behind by centuries of use as a mine, lumber mill, wastewater treatment plant and major industrial center. The land, nestled above Puget Sound, had few mature trees.
One exception was a lone fir that stood sentinel over the grounds, perched on a 12-foot berm along the water and visible from every vantage point. It was not the most attractive tree, its canopy lopsided with gaps between the branches and spotty needle growth.
“It had a kind of Charlie Brown Christmas tree look to it,†said Mike Davis, the U.S.G.A.’s executive director, describing the tree when construction of the golf course began in 2004.
But as nearly 1.5 million cubic yards of dirt and sand were moved to implement the innovative links design by Robert Trent Jones Jr., the tree endured. Hillsides were obliterated, vast craters were filled and hundreds of acres were reshaped. The tattered tree survived.
“It started to serve as a lighthouse for everyone,†said Jay Blasi, the project architect for Jones’s golf architectural firm at the time of construction. “The scale of the work was so big you could almost lose your bearings, but you could always figure out where you were by finding the tree.â€
Chambers Bay opened to the public in 2007 with the tree, which is not in play, well behind the 15th green and 25 feet from one of the tees on the 16th hole.
Then, during the dark of night on April 29, 2008, an assailant began hacking away at the trunk of the fir with an ax. Police believe that the attacker, who was never apprehended, reached the golf course by jet ski. There was evidence of a fire on the beach below the tree.
The next morning, the tree was still standing, but it had an 8-by-18-inch gash in its trunk. Several cans of beer were scattered at the tree’s base.
Matt Allen, the Chambers Bay general manager, was asked how many beer cans were left behind.
“Enough to do something stupid,†he said.
The first arborist the golf course consulted said the tree was a goner.
“When the news got out, we received hundreds of voice mails and emails from people in the area who said they had big fir trees on their land that they would donate as a replacement for our lone fir,†Allen said. “People were upset. They love their trees around here.â€
Chambers Bay instead turned to Neal Wolbert of Wolbert’s Plant Essentials, a tree-service and landscaping business in Olympia, Wash.
Wolbert said he could save the tree, and he instituted a treatment program that included a handmade epoxy that filled the gap in the damaged trunk. Iron bars were affixed to the bark to strengthen the area, and the tree was fortified with compost and nutrient treatments. Excess soil was removed from the root system, and over the next few years the tree was treated with fertilizers and summer irrigation.
“In three years’ time, it looked like a different tree,†said Wolbert, who donated his time rehabilitating the tree.
The tree has filled out, and new limbs have sprouted with lush growth.
“Even before the attack, it was clear that maybe the tree wasn’t going to last long term,†said Blasi, who now owns a design firm. “The hacking saved the tree, which is kind of poetic.â€
In 2010, Blasi used the tree as the backdrop to his wedding ceremony near the 15th green.
The tree, set against the pristine, blue water of Puget Sound, will probably be the foremost nongolf image broadcast by Fox Sports during the tournament, and even moreso once the camera operators zoom in on the bald eagles nesting in the tree.
John Ladenburg, who oversaw the golf course project a decade ago as the local Pierce County executive, once said he wanted the lone fir to remain on the property so it could represent the millions of evergreen trees that have grown across the region for centuries.
A links golf course is not native to the Pacific Northwest, but Chambers Bay has at least one homegrown, ever-conspicuous, beloved feature standing as a touchstone for the wealth of evergreen forests that spread for miles around.
The Grass
The first thing to understand about the grass that will be underfoot during this year’s national golf championship is that it is, in essence, foreign ground.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, European immigrants sailing across the Atlantic Ocean brought bags of grass seed with them, including the strains of what is now called fine fescue grass. It is rarely used at North American golf courses, but it is the only kind of grass found at Chambers Bay, which was intentional.
But a United States Open has never before been contested on fine fescue. To that end, no one knows precisely what will happen when the first tee shot is launched on Thursday.
Fine fescue is a prized jewel in golf, the carpet beneath the feet of golfers near the game’s Scottish birthplace. But it is also a delicate, persnickety tourist that does not happily acclimate to the customs and climate of most other environs. It struggles to grow in most of the United States.
But Chambers Bay, just eight years old, is a links-style course near Puget Sound about 40 miles south of Seattle, built on the leftover, sandy soil of an old sand and gravel quarry. The weather is typically moist and cool year-round â€" not unlike the weather on the coastal regions of the British Isles.
From the beginning, Chambers Bay was constructed with the purpose of hosting the United States Open. Jones, the layout’s architect, knew that a fine fescue surface from tee box to green would intrigue the U.S.G.A., the doyens of the Open.
So despite the risks, fine fescue was laid across the 250 acres of Chambers Bay â€" tees, fairways, rough and greens. Yes, it took three, five or eight years for the grass to grow in completely. But Chambers Bay was never meant to be an ordinary United States Open site. Grass befitting a suburban lawn was hardly the goal.
“You want fine fescue because it is just the most wonderful golf surface and a fun way to play the game,†Davis, the U.S.G.A. executive director, said. “When the golf ball hits fine fescue, the ball skids and rolls instead of other grasses which grab and stop the ball. Fine fescue has a thinner, rounder blade so there is no tackiness. It has so many fabulous qualities.â€
There is a major drawback to fine fescue. It does not like too much foot traffic and can be destroyed by the wheels of hundreds of golf carts, which most golf course operators would consider a deal-breaking shortcoming.
But in the early stages of construction at Chambers Bay, which is owned by Pierce County, the problem was solved when Ladenburg decided to develop a walking-only golf course.
It was the first of many protective measures for the property pampered grass. The county, despite the loss of revenue, also limited play in the winter, when the grass is dormant. Some greens were covered in plastic when temperatures dipped even further than usual.
The grass responded, albeit slowly.
“We spent years just staring at the grass and wishing it would grow faster,†said Eric Johnson, the Chambers Bay director of agronomy.
Eventually, a mat-like surface of grass developed, germinated by hybrid seed variants that were genetically enhanced in academic laboratories. As an example, the roots of fine fescue grass are only two feet deep while the typical lawn has four-foot roots.
“The shallow roots are ideal for a golf course because it means the fine fescue doesn’t need as much water as other grasses do,†said Dr. William Meyer, the director of the Turfgrass Breeding Project at Rutgers University. “It’s something we’ve perfected.â€
Meyer, whose father was a golf superintendent, said the fine fescue experiment at Chambers Bay had put a charge in the close-knit community of grass experts.
“At the United States Open, how often is the talk about the kind of grass instead of the sand in the bunkers or something like that?†Meyer said.
The surface may appear less lush to viewers, but since the entire property has only one type of grass, another difference may be more bewildering.
“Visually, people may be saying, ‘Where does the green start and the fairway end?’ †Davis said. “I think that’s kind of neat.â€
For roughly one week at Chambers Bay, a simple strain of grass will have achieved an impressive mingling of continents. Fine fescue, spawned by seeds transported by settlers and then transformed by their antecedents, will be the pioneering common ground for the American championship of a sport founded in the homeland of the colonists.
The Train
In 1873, long before there was fine fescue or a singular tree at Chambers Bay, there was rail traffic. Now, that traffic is the busiest rail operation in the Pacific Northwest, shipping items from automobiles to elephants north to Canada and south to Mexico.
Part of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, the line is a central transport corridor with locomotives typically hauling about 100 train cars past several Chambers Bay holes, most notably Nos. 15, 16 and 17.
During the United States Open, the train service will continue as usual. It will not carry spectators to the tournament. The tracks will be out of bounds, so a tee shot that lands in a train car and is whisked 500 miles to California will not qualify as the longest drive in golf history.
Still, the trains could be a factor in the outcome of the championship. Train whistles are not expected to be a frequent disturbance, but if there are emergency situations or pedestrians near the tracks, the thundering train horns will sound.
And the trains will be in the sight lines of players on a few pivotal holes.
“On the second-most-back tee of the 16th hole, when you’re lining up your shot, you could have a train coming right at you,†Davis said. “You can’t ignore the train because it’s relatively loud. Players might think about backing off from the shot, but the trains can go on for five or six minutes.
“A player cannot just stand there for five or six minutes. It’s just one of the many things that sets Chambers Bay apart. The trains may have more impact than people think.â€
There are other ways the trains may be a distraction. Because they sometimes carry crude oil, which has led to deadly derailments elsewhere in North America, at least one local group has discussed protesting the train during the championship.
The demonstrations against the train could be carried out by protesters in kayaks paddling in adjacent Puget Sound. But Scott Mielcarek, a captain in the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department and the law enforcement incident commander for the tournament, said that a security zone on Puget Sound would prohibit any vessels from coming within 1,000 yards of the golf course.
Similar regulations have been put in place at other United States Open championships, like those played at the Pebble Beach Golf Links in California.
For many decades during the British Open, there has been nothing unusual about the sight and sound of trains passing by the world’s best golfers vying for a major championship. It has happened occasionally during the United States Open, too, most recently at the Merion Golf Club in 2013.
But those were usually small, quieter commuter trains. At Chambers Bay, the trains will be as attention-grabbing as the millions of pioneering blades of grass and the lone tree.
“The train is just another way that Chambers Bay ties into golf’s roots,†Davis said. “Altogether, there is beauty in the differences of this setting. In the end, that’s what we should embrace.â€
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