Winner, Winner Chicken Dinner – BC Golf Writers To Play Chambers Bay U.S. Open Set-up
Okay, So Maybe It's Not Really Like Winning A Lottery, But To A Diehard Golf Fan It Comes Pretty Close
by Alfie Lau (with files from Bryan Outram)
It's Not Quite The Same As Winning A Lottery - But To A Golf Fan It's Pretty Close When They Draw Your Name To Play A U.S. Open Championship Venue The Day After It Finishes - Google Images
Usually, 11:30 a.m. at a U.S. Open Media Centre is a busy time because it’s the beginning of lunch. But Sunday’s lunch surprise had nothing to do with food and everything to do with Monday’s breakfast and lunch plans.
“You have been chosen to play Monday golf at Chambers Bay,” is the opening line of the email sent to both Bryan Outram and myself by the USGA.
Because of the 18-hole playoff to determine a winner of the U.S. Open, the USGA keeps possession of the golf course for Monday and sends out these great notes to fill a tee sheet, but there’s one condition.
“As long as there’s no playoff” is what we are reminded of when we get this invitation. That means our Sunday is spent wishing and cheering for any of the four co-leaders, from Dustin Johnson to Jordan Spieth to Branden Grace to Jason Day, to run away from the field and win the U.S. Open on Sunday.
Thanks to one of the wildest roller-coaster finishes in U.S. Open history, Jordan Spieth's final hole birdie gave him a one shot victory after Dustin Johnson 3-putted from 10 feet away when the eagle putt would have given him the championship outright or a two-putt birdie would get him at least into an 18-hole Monday playoff.
End result is, we play Chambers Bay from the championship tees on Monday.
There were actually 24 lucky winners to play Chambers, with tee times from 9:50 to 11 a.m. Outram and myself will play with Brian Parsons and Kathryn Carson in the first media group.
It’s actually the third time I’ve been lucky enough to win the lottery, but I’ve only teed it up once previously, at the Olympic Club in San Francisco in 2012.
My first lottery win came in 2008, when 60 media members groaned in unison when Tiger Woods made a sliding birdie putt over a bumpy 18th green to force a playoff with Rocco Mediate. Woods would triumph in 19 holes on the Monday, and while I walked the entire course that June Monday, I never hit one golf shot.
The media lottery is a bit of a hidden secret, as a sign-up sheet goes out on Saturday and media members are informed on Sunday of their luck or lack of luck in getting a Monday tee time.
The Vancouver Sun’s Cam Cole told me about this little tradition in 2008 and I will always be grateful to Cole for helping a golf reporting rookie out. I still tell people about the lottery, but on the Saturday when the list goes out, I don’t ever remind anybody about it, because after all, that would lessen my chances of winning the lottery.
I’ll never take for granted the pleasure of playing a U.S. Open course under U.S. Open conditions, even though my roommate, Vancouver Golf Tour Commissioner Fraser Mulholland, calls my clubs 'garden tools.'
Outram, covering his first U.S. Open, is 1-for-1 in the lottery, and surely, as a 14-handicap who shot 78 at Salish Cliffs last week, he’ll tear the course up. Perhaps he’ll beat Tiger Woods’ 80 or Ben Martin’s 86 because that’s what 14-handicappers do, especially on U.S. Open golf courses. I’ve joked with him that if he wasn’t riding in my car, I probably wouldn’t have told him to enter the lottery.
After all, how could I possibly explain why we were heading home late Tuesday afternoon and I’d be off doing “other things” as he cleaned up our rental house in the University Place neighbourhood.
The great thing about playing Chambers Bay on the day after the U.S. Open ends is we’ll get to play to the same pins as the pros, and if we play the same tees, at an “easy” 7,384 yards, we’ll have a chance to break 113, which was my score at Olympic three years ago.
While birdies will be very scarce for the day, I expect to have some opportunities. The 337-yard par-4 16th will play as a driveable par-4 for the pros, but even with a hybrid and a wedge, I should have a look at birdie here. The 270-yard uphill par-4 12th is also a hole that I can get to in regulation.
The toughest holes will undoubtedly be the 477-yard par-4 7th, with a green that Mike Davis said has a “challenging hole location in the front left quadrant of the green, on a plateau.”; the 493-yard 6th; and the 460-yard 10th, which will have a far back-right corner pin which is partially obstructed by the dune right of the green.
Green speeds are supposed to be in the 11-12 range and as long as we don’t get all bent out of shape by these greens – unlike Billy Horschel and Chris Kirk – there’s a chance we’ll have a great day at Chambers Bay on Monday.
Sorry about the letdown DJ, but congratulations to Jordan Spieth...and us.
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