Uphill Vs. Downhill: The 9th At Chambers Bay

Steve DiMeglio talked to Tiger Woods about the two tee options at Chambers Bay's 9th.

DiMeglio writes:

And on the par-3 ninth, he hit a 5-iron to the green this time instead of a 3-wood from 200, and from the other tee on the ninth hole he hit 4-iron from 40 yards longer.

That's one of the quirks at Chambers Bay. There are two tees on the ninth hole. There's one 100 feet above the green; the other is 20 feet below the green.

I got to look at these distinct options this week and while neither version of the hole leaps out at me as extraordinary, both have merits. Ultimately, the slightly uphill version is more visually appealing from a pure golf shot point of view, while the extreme downhill version does allow for an interesting sight of balls landing and funneling an unusual trait for a steeply falling one-shotter.

(Few of the world's great par-3s play downhill, especially to the extreme of Chambers Bay's 9th. Most are flat or play slightly up.)

Here's Brad Fritsch playing to the 9th today from the elevated tee. Obviously a brilliant spot to be due to the views and with today's hole it was fun seeing well-struck balls funnel down:

The views aren't as grand but the player's point of view is more compelling here even though it's essentially and all-or-nothing shot:

How Chambers Bay Got Its Name (Back Then)

Feliks Banel at MyNorthwest.com explains how Chambers Bay got its name thanks to a settler chasing off some "Brits" with a rifle back in 1849.

Banel, a local historian, writes (thanks reader Tobin for this):

In those early years of the 19th century, British and American interests were battling for domination of all of what's now Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, along with parts of Montana, Wyoming, and British Columbia. The area was known then as the "Oregon Country;" a treaty signed in 1819 allowed the British and the Americans to jointly occupy the land.

The Hudson's Bay Company was here to collect animal skins for sale in Asia, but Americans came here, too, as missionaries and settlers looking to homestead on the land. Under joint occupation, it was essentially a numbers game — if more Americans than British settled here, it would create the political will necessary for Oregon to become part of the United States.

Thomas M. Chambers was one of the tens of thousands of Americans who headed west to the Oregon Country in the 1840s. Chambers, along with his wife and six sons, left their native Kentucky and hit the Oregon Trail in 1845.

"All are welcome at the home of golf on Sundays. Except golfers."

I haven't a clue why, on the eve of the U.S. Open with St. Andrews hosting The Open in a month, the New York Times felt compelled to run Sam Borden's piece on Sundays at The Old Course. Even ill-timed, it's an enjoyable read.

Borden writes:

Sunday activities on the Old Course over the years have run the gamut. A local woman named Marie-Noel, who declined to give her surname, said she recalled members of her family laying out their laundry on the course some weeks and added, with a mixture of sheepishness and pride, that she and her friends used to participate in an on-course drinking game known as Port Golf when she was attending a university nearby.
Matheson, one of four guides handling the daily tours, recalled seeing fishermen spread their nets on the fairways so they could mend them. He shook his head when relating a story about a woman in high heels trying to walk across one of the greens.

“That happens more than you would think,” he said. “Then you sometimes see some of the boys out with a football trying to have a proper game before they get chased away.”

Matheson said he had never heard of any serious discussion about changing the Sunday rule. He noted that Old Tom Morris, the legendary player and greenskeeper who revitalized the Old Course in the mid-1800s, was said to have preached, “Even if the golfers don’t need a rest, the course does.”