Chambers Bay
Played Chambers Bay solo on the way from Portland to a Seattle meeting in 2010 – four years or so after the course opened and five years before they played the Open here. I got teamed up with a guy who brought his own caddie! Not his wife or kid walking around as a hoot, it was his own real caddie. While I didn’t recognize him and since he was young, I am guessing he was a mini-tour guy. While he played from the tips, I only partially suffered from tee tee envy – the whites here are about 6,000 yards and the blues (or sandies) are 6500. I should have played the whites, ah but tee tee envy pushed me to the blues. And I played poopily.
I was impressed with Chambers Bay and all and put it into my own Top 100 but I may be getting over influenced by the golf magazine rankings and the US Open. There are some warts so I’ll break my write-up into the Good, the Bad and the Ugly about Chambers Bay and the general Seattle area.
The Good: Chambers Bay is a beautiful course, sitting on the Puget Sound with views out to the sound, Fox Island and beyond from pretty much every hole. The freight train tracks that run between the course and the sound make a great touch and not sure if trains are frequent but one came along when we played. The course flows well, starting out with a short-ish par five heading down to the sound. Two was one of the holes I remember most along with 15 through 17 which play along the tracks and sound. The linksy vibe does not feel manufactured and the lone fir and mining site relics are nice touches. Also, I had been a fan of Seattle so while I put my city write up in the ugly, it’s only because of the state and city leadership.
The Bad: So I played this course when it was still really super immature and the fairways and even the greens were spotty. I chalked it up to the newness but wasn’t surprised that the PGA players also knocked the course for the conditioning. I’m heading back to the area this year (in 2021) and we discussed playing it so if I do I can update the conditioning and photos. Maybe I can change the write-up to the Good, the Good and the shitty Governor and Mayor?
Another Bad impression that remains for me about Chambers Bay is the clubhouse. It is perched well above the course on a ridge which would make for some dramatic views and an awesome terrace. But alas, the clubhouse here is a double-wide. The tiny little terrace in the back is squeezed into a phone-booth sized area and there is no dramatic windows from the dining area that look out to the course and Puget Sound below. This is another drawback that I chalked up to the newness of the club when I played here, but alas when I went back a couple of years ago, the doublewide was still serving as the clubhouse. What a waste. Then you have the whole shuttle thing to get from the clubhouse down to the tee shack – which is not much more than a lean-to. Was the architect of the buildings here trying to achieve a homeless encampment look to match the Seattle urbanscape?
The Ugly: The first time I came to Seattle, Rick Mirer was quarterback for the Seahawks – so maybe 93 or 94? We saw a game in the old Kingdome. Starting in the early 2000’s then I’ve probably been back once a year or so. I like the city, but here’s why I call it the ugly. Since I’ve been coming back, the city has gotten more and more third-world, with the homeless encampments and related issues. Traffic was always a bitch so when I don’t stay in the city I’ll stay in or around the Tukwilla light rail stop and take light rail in which is pretty easy and quick.
Pike Place market is pretty touristy but when in Rome right? I brought my daughters out with me a few years ago now and we hung out at Pike Place Brewery and there’s a nice little bar in the market – I think it’s called Sound View but that may be next door. Down to the waterfront. The area is nice (save the homeless) and Elliott’s was actually a really good place for seafood despite it’s touristy locale. Further north (maybe uptown not sure what they call the area) is my favorite sushi place (Shiro’s) and there’s a cool bar across the street called Buckley’s.
So why the hate? The leadership of the state and especially the city have destroyed it. This all came to a head last year. Their response to the pandemic was overly heavy handed and hurtful to small business yet it yielded no better results than states with far less restrictions. Now that Trump’s out of office, suddenly it’s okay to start opening for indoor dining (despite a surge that is outpacing new cases from the middle of the summer). News reports are suddenly coming out now that the shutdowns don’t work. For city and state leadership to play god with people’s and businesses’ lives over politics is not only a shame, it is criminal and they should be held accountable for what they did. I am not sure if any of the restaurants and areas I discussed above are even open anymore. On top of that, let’s talk about the handling of the summer riots.
Jenny Durkan is a flaming horse’s ass. She’s a political scumbag of a hack. She allowed lawless pieces of shit to take over the Capitol Hill section of the city, allowed them to destroy the police headquarters there, driving good tax-paying business people and residents to either live in fear there or be forced to flee their homes while her Summer of Love Chazites (fresh from their parent’s basements) camped out for two months and laughed at her and law enforcement. Governor Inman is no better, refusing to step in and provide help or lean on the National Guard that Trump was begging for them to utilize to protect the tax-paying citizens. That people in the city and state keep voting in failed leaders like these two ass clowns is simply amazing and while I will be coming back to the area for work, I will never spend another penny in the city – and there are probably about 75 million people just like me. Kiss the tourist tax dollars goodbye Durkan. But I digress and am off my soapbox now.
Golf Scrapbook 