Bamberger On Rake-Free Bunkers: "More imperfect, less uniform, as the world is imperfect and not uniform."

The Road Hole bunker in more aesthetically-pleasing times.

Michael Bamberger is one of many writers to take to the links and report back on what new safety-first rules are making the sport better.

I loved this on bunkers:

While we’re at it, golf is better without bunker rakes, as we’re playing now. Faster, for one thing. More primitive. More penal, for being someplace you shouldn’t be. More imperfect, less uniform, as the world is imperfect and not uniform. Pine Valley has no rakes. You’ll never hear somebody there yell at a ball in the air, “Get in the bunker!”

Morning Read: Beginning To Ponder The Golf Experience Beyond A Time Of Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing tragedy—nearing 70,000 Americans dead—with accelerate emerging trends or radically alter ways of life we’ve come to know. MorningRead.com deserves plaudits for being one of the only golf publications to look past Brooks Koepka’s birthday or Rory v. Billy on Peloton to ponder the fate of of golf’s substantial industry.

Besides contributions from Dan O’Neill and Tom Coyne, an excellent three part-series has been filed by Brad Klein on various elements of the “business: and “experience” that will change.

Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here, and note this from Part 3 about the likely changes in turf management influenced by forces like staff or budget reductions, among other reasons.

From the modern makeover piece posted as part 3:

For course management and setup:
* Delayed starting times as reduced crews attend to necessary daily setup.

Warning, on the golf values reset I plan to make a case for this at a later date. But go on Klein:

* Varied conditions of presentation, with less emphasis upon flawless, TV-style lush-green setups and more tolerance for less maintenance of roughs, native areas and areas around tees. This ecologically sustainable approach will entail less water, fewer chemicals, less-frequent applications and reliance more upon scientific principles of agronomic management such as ”degree growing days” and moisture-level monitoring.

* In an effort to reduce turf stress and heavy reliance upon chemical inputs, courses will adopt marginally raised mowing heights of fairways (say, from 0.40-inch to 0.55-inch) to reduce mowing demands and make the playing experience more fun and enjoyable for mid-to-high-handicappers and newcomers. This trend will vary from facility to facility, depending upon client and member expectations. These setup conditions also can vary depending upon the occasion.

* Superintendents will be relying on smaller, more efficient crews, which means more interaction among golfers and workers. These reduced crews will devote more of their workday, especially at the start, to sanitizing equipment, keeping safe distance in the workplace and attending to safety conditions among golfers.

While so many questions still remain, Klein still dares to consider the food and beverage side of golf operations where the change figures to be more extreme and surprising.

For club operations:
* Reconfigured food-and-beverage facilities, with greater spacing among serving tables, if necessary, and any unused banquet halls converted to regular dining.

* More emphasis upon takeout of casual meals, which has proved to be popular during the recent social-distancing measures. As we rebound to a semblance of normalcy, the practice might well become habit-forming for consumers; it certainly is more efficient for clubs to provide – less labor, less waste of food and easier to prepare and serve. This will require additional supplies of disposable serving supplies, such as bags, plastic plates and Styrofoam containers, and less emphasis upon conventional flatware and glassware.

Anyway, lots to ponder and worth reading if you are in the industry. The facilities that get out in front of innovation and adopt changes either inspired by trends pre-virus or the new world order, should be able to take advantage of the newfound appreciation for golf.

Golf Reset: Goodbye To The Almighty, Overprimped, Must-Be-Raked Daily Bunker?

Ad from Golf Architecture magazine suggesting Old Tom Morris would have approved of Better Billy Bunker.

I realize that jumping from the large scale topic of what really matters in golf—recreational vs. pro game—is a bit like jumping from talk of vaccines to multi-vitamins. Worse, doing so as we have as so much suffering is taking place in hospitals feels inconsiderate.

But the COVID-19 pandemic will accelerate trends in so many sectors, and as I noted in the introductory post to this occasional series, golf is not immune. So we march on with those caveats in mind and consider how this will change the bunker maintenance industry. And an industry, it has become.

Just a quick reminder here in case you skipped early Gaelic 101, “bunker” is derived from Old Scottish “bonker” and meant a chest or box, and became secondarily defined as a “small, deep sandpit in linksland”.

Since these bunkers appeared naturally on linksland, no one thought to arm them with a rake or liners to keep the shells out. That nonsense came later.

The first known reference in golf’s literature came in 1812, used in Regulations for the Game of Golf according to Peter Davies in the Dictionary of Golfing Terms.

Over the ensuing centuries golfers changed from accepting bunkers as accidental pits scraped out by divots or sheep, to demanding more maintenance. The shift was caused by two factors: the move from a match play mentality to a card-and-pencil, handicap-based game where tallying up a score could be disrupted by an unraked sand pit.

As golf courses moved inland, bunkers become very clearly man-made. The shift from natural to artificial changed expectations. Throw in the whining of golf professionals who were making their living on the links, and you have today’s irrational and expensive focus on perfect hazards. Even the Old Course rebuilds theirs every five years or so, which is why you get this kind of visual and psychological contrast from the old days to the present.

Hell Bunker on the Old Course a long time ago.

Hell at the 2015 Open Championship.

Besides the obvious changes in symmetry, artistry and beauty, the more “functional” Hell has been rigged with a flat floor to send balls closer to the face. Such artificiality goes against everything that makes the Old Course incredible. It could also be easily countered by raking the bunker once a week and letting whatever happens over those days leave the golfer wondering what they will find if unsuccessfully taking on Hell.

Not to pick on the Old Course, but the bunkers there used to look like this:

Despite the horrible looking lies to be found, golf somehow spread beyond the Old Course and became popular! All in spite of unfair bunkers that today would be seen as antithetical to growing the game.

Still, there were hopeful signs before the pandemic that the minimalist, scruffy, less-defined bunker was becoming more acceptable than the maintained bunker. The look of age, erosion and imperfection has become attractive again in part because of the thrill golfers find in overcoming such a bunker compared to carrying an overprimped hazard.

Here is a modern bunker, maintained for a tournament round, but otherwise looking ancient and imposing in an appetizing way:

Increasingly American superintendents have mimicked the Sandbelt concept of Claude Crockford’s day (and today) only raking bunker floors.

Here’s what a Kingston Heath bunker looked like in 2011:

With good intentions, this is an Americanized take on less raking. Though it’s mostly born out of a desire to prevent buried lies while ensuring clean, colorful, sanitary sand conditions:

In times of societal or economic trouble, bunkers have been filled in by courses. Even a master bunker creator like A.W. TIllinghast set out on his mid-1930s “PGA tour” of American courses looking for ways to save money. Bunkers topped his list.

However, filling these sandy things falls into the baby-with-the-bathwater class of overreactions. Especially these days where so much time and discussion is put into bunkers.

Which brings us to the rake.

Even though the chances of the coronavirus lingering on the surface of a rake seems extraordinarily slim, the removal of them from most golf courses allows us to think about a version of golf where hazard perfection is both antithetical to the role of a bunker and unnecessarily expensive.

The height of insanity might be seen as the time when courses spent bundles on various liners to keep sand in place and loose impediments out to prevent damaging nicks to clubs. Maybe having a chip or dent on the wedge will be scene as a bad of honor while bringing back genuine fear factor of landing in a bunker.

An entire cottage industry centered around selling bunker products reached a zenith when a golf architect, consultubg with a governmental agency to craft proposal specs, emphasized a costly bunker renovation using one particular liner product.

Turns out, the architect was president (at the time) of the bunker liner company that was recommended.

Concerns about making a course better and highlight its special heritage? Non-existent. Thankfully the scam was outed and he lost the design job. Now even the American Society of Golf Course Architects, of which he is a member, says the lifespan of an American bunker is twenty to twenty-five years, a big improvement from not long ago when ten years was the number.

Some of this bunker maintenance mania stems from the issues presented in the first golf reset post: making the professional golf bigger than the sport. But as easy as it seems to blame televised pro golf for many expensive trends, the bunker neuroses is mostly on average golfers fussing about their scorecard. Then again, there are you Scott Stallings’ of the world declaring unraked bunkers as a line-crossing that would make precious pros reconsider sending in their entry form to the first post-COVID-19 tournaments.

Think of bunkers and the all-mighty raking that was so cherished: imagine if footprints on beaches were deemed unsafe, and only the beaches raked and filtered daily were allowed to be open? The cost of such maintenance would be astronomical. Plus, the wait for beaches to be open after the maintenance teams had been through would drive everyone mad. A less extreme version of such nonsense occurs with golf course bunkers.

No one expects us to return to the days of yesteryear (above). Maintenance crews will still maintain bunkers and courses will leave rakes out, but golf without rakes (for the time being) should be seen as an opportunity to highlight the waste of resources and energy spilled to prevent the indignity of a bad lie in a place you’re not supposed be.

Tour Player Warns: “Guys are not going to play for their livelihood with no rakes in the bunker"

I had not seen the stern warning from Scott Stallings in this James Colgan Golf.com piece, but it sent laughter down my spine and I hope, in these difficult times, you get similar joy from this Grade A, Bobby Joe Grooves level point missing.

Colgan writes:

These changes could see players putting with the flagstick in, playing without rakes in bunkers and pulling their own clubs to minimize contact with caddies, among other adjustments. While the proposed guidelines could allow golf to be played in the near future, Stallings doubts players would get on board with the changes.

“I just don’t think there’s any way guys are going to do that,” he said. “Guys are not going to play for their livelihood with no rakes in the bunker and no caddies. That’s just not going to happen.

“I’m fully confident that there are going to be guys who choose not to play.”

The Golf.com Monday morning roundtable feasted on the Tour player and fitness fanatic’s declaration.

Sean Zak, senior editor (@Sean_Zak): Some probably will, but they’ll really look like sore thumbs. Are you really going to complain about an imperfect bunker when you could just be at home spending your money and not making any? Anyone who complains will not be embraced by fans, but then again, this is the Groupthink Tour. Their opinions tend to all be the same by the end of a tournament.

Josh Sens, senior writer (@JoshSens): Playing for “their livelihood with no rakes in the bunker and no caddies.” Egad. The horrors! Not even Dickens could have dreamed up such hardship. I’m sure Stallings is right. Some players will push back, and they’ll look as ridiculous as the above sounds.

Alan Shipnuck, senior writer (@Alan_Shipnuck): The bunker thing is getting a lot of play, but there could be an easy solution: Why not have one designated raker per hole who cleans up after every player? But the larger point is that sports is going to be different for all of us when it returns, and the players would be wise to get on board.

Michael Bamberger, senior writer: I think the game would be improved at every level without rakes in bunkers. Return to them their dignity. They are traps. They are to be avoided. The players will have to conform, or there won’t be a tournament in which to play.

Dylan Dethier, senior writer (@dylan_dethier): I don’t see this being an issue, at least from the Tour’s bigger names. Ever since they officially canceled the Players, it’s been mostly sunshine and roses when it comes to Tour players and the rulesmakers. I would say the far bigger issue would be if players felt there was no effort being made to bring golf back, but that’s clearly not the case. I’m sure Stallings will come around.

Bunker rakes were down my list of golf reset values topics, but I think the topic just moved up the list.

Golfer Expectations For Bunkers: Still Silly After All These Years

The minimalist architecture movement has helped deliver many sustainable elements to golf maintenance, but it still has not made a dent in golfer expectations for perfect bunker lies.

The Fried Egg’s Garrett Morrison considers the importance of groomed hazards for golfers and the cost to the game through the eyes of USGA agronomist George Waters.

To avoid player complaints about bunkers, courses have to increase spending. In turn, green fees go up. This is a vicious circle that sometimes leads to closure.

“What I think would surprise many golfers is that there are definitely courses that spend as much—or even more—per square foot on bunkers as they do on greens,” George Waters told me. Waters is Manager of Green Section Education for the USGA and wrote Sand and Golf: How Terrain Shapes the Game. “And it’s golfer expectations that drive that spending.”

Just as pressing as financial issues, according to Waters, are opportunity costs. The more time greenkeepers devote to bunker maintenance, the less they have for other tasks.

“The list is basically endless,” Waters said. “For lower- and mid-budget courses, the extra time can make a big difference in improving conditions on greens, approaches, and fairways. That could be more time spent hand watering, more time making irrigation repairs, more time nursing weak areas back to health.”

The story notes that current wokester-darling Sweetens Cove treats all bunkers as waste areas, meaning you can ground your club and maintenance is not as diligent about daily rakings.

The golf course industry generally misses opportunity to make a show of how these things affect cost. Because I’m pretty sure we’d have heard by now of a course knocking 10-20% off their green fees for a week while bunkers go unraked. I’m pretty sure golfers would not mind, but then again, I forget how much people demand perfect lies in hazards.

Trump Properties, E-Verify And The Golf Industry

After reading Joshua Partlow , Nick Miroff and David A. Fahrenthold  Washington Post story on the pipeline of illegal Costa Ricans working at various Trump Organization properties for years, it’s easy to see how this will put pressure on the golf industry to either suggest this is a one-off situation, or adopt E-Verify.

Many of the immigrants interviewed worked on the construction of Trump Bedminster, home of the 2022 PGA Championship.

“Many of us helped him get what he has today,” Angulo said. “This golf course was built by illegals.”

The Washington Post spoke with 16 men and women from Costa Rica and other Latin American countries, including six in Santa Teresa de Cajon, who said they were employed at the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster. All of them said they worked for Trump without legal status — and that their managers knew.

While Mr. Trump now villifies such illegals, the company has adopted the E-Verify system at select properties.

Of 12 Trump golf courses in the United States, three of them — in North Carolina, Southern California, and Doral, Fla. — are enrolled in the E-Verify system, according to a federal database. Eric Trump said that “a few” other clubs, including a Trump course in the Bronx, use a private vendor to screen new applicants. 

The Post story noted that competitors in the industry more consistently rely on E-Verify. But shouldn’t the golf industry, presumably supportive of this policy, proactively push for industry-wide use of the program?

Oh right, they like cheap labor more. Scratch that thought!

Farmers: Repairing Green Damage Comes To Poa Annua, Will It Matter?

For years pro golfers have fixed ball marks in their lines, increasingly without consulting their playing partners. The governing bodies presumably have created the new green damage repair rule to allow this sometimes questionable improvement of a putting line.

Doug Ferguson of AP considers what will become of the rule now that players have arrived at the sometimes bumpier and more-prone-to-damage poa annua greens at Torrey Pines. Players are still unsure how much can be damaged.

“At Kapalua, I fixed ball marks, but I was only tapping them down because it was Bermuda,” Xander Schauffele said. “Out here, you might do a little more than a simple tap down. ... This place, late in the day, it feels like you’re playing a game of Plinko.”

Schauffele was quick to note one part of the new rule: Damage can be repaired without unusual delay.

“It could, depending on how these players take the rule to heart ... if you’re trying to fix a 40-foot putt, it’s going to be tricky with pace of play,” Schauffele said. “Rules officials will be on us. The time clock hasn’t changed. If you want to spend 35 seconds tapping down the line, you’re going to have to pull the trigger in less than what you normally do.”

I penned this item for Golfweek with Rory McIlroy’s slight concerns about what is and what is not damage. The piece also includes video of what a spikeless-shoe green can look like after a day of play. Granted, 1080p and modern contrast makes the greens look way worse than they are given how far Torrey’s surfaces have come since Tiger’s infamous bouncing putt in the 2008 U.S. Open.

To be clear: the greens are excellent. Smooth as bent in the afternoon? No. But compared to poa of 20 years ago, there is no comparison.

VIDEO: Why the new golf damage-repair rule may be a pain in the grass at Torrey Pines. #PGATour via @GeoffShac pic.twitter.com/NA31yrKcXV

— Golfweek (@golfweek) January 24, 2019

R&A Rules Chief Rickman Confident New Rules Will Speed Up Play

As the USGA and R&A rolled out the actual written Rules of Golf coming in 2019—please give them clicks, much editing went into this!—Golfweek’s Alistair Tait asked the R&A’s David Rickman about the proverbial elephant in the room: spike mark tapping.

While spikes are virtually gone, the idea that players can massage their line continues to not sit well with many, including yours truly, who is struggling to reconcile playing the ball as it lies while being freed up to manipulate the ground between your ball and the hole.

Besides the philosophic disconnect, Tait zeroes in on the past lessons learned from allowing spike mark tapping on the European Tour and Rickman says times have changed.

“It was an area in the extensive discussions that we talked about for some time because in all of this we were interested in speeding the game up, and this change in particular could potentially even go the other way. But what I would say is that it does present a completely different dynamic,” he said.

“I think we’ll see people repairing damage as a collective at different times. I think what you will also see is that the putting green surfaces will generally be maintained throughout the day through the actions of all the players at different times in a much higher standard. So those players at the end of the are only repairing the minimal damage that hasn’t already been repaired. I think in reality it will work.”

I don’t. And this is someone who believes in Rickman’s views on the rules. Primarily, I just can’t see how you can instill a “play it as it lies” mentality in today’s players or future generations when you can now make it lie on the greens. They already complain when all 18 greens are not of the same firmness and speed, and providing a free-for-all to manicure lines seems like less of a slow play issue and more of a core value undermining problem.

Certainly a case could be made that introducing spike-mark tapping could have alleviate pressure on supers to present perfect conditions. But the first time you watch an elite player turn golf into curling by massaging their line, I’m confident you’ll miss the old play it as it lies days.

We’ll find out soon enough!

U.S. Open V. The Open: Green Speeds Make The Difference

After playing his first Open, Luke List is wishing the USGA mimic the R&A in setup philosophy, reports Tony Jimenez for Reuters.

A similar refrain was repeated many times by players, observers and fans who enjoyed the tough-but-fair and noticeably faster golf, though as I note in this assessment of Carnoustie for Golfweek, the issue is layered but also incredibly simple: green speeds made the difference between complimenting Carnoustie's architecture, and ruining it.

Pace of play was noticeably better and as a "product," The Open proved infinitely more pleasurable to watching without having to spend so much time watching players grind over short putts for four days.

While professional golfers are praising the R&A coming off the U.S. Open setup issues, there were more than a handful of silly hole locations saved only by green speeds in the high 9s when leaders reached them.  Had the USGA slowed greens at Shinnecock down to the high 9's, there would have been softer and bumpier conditions that today's spoiled-by-bent-grass players would loathe. But on a seaside links with a blend of poa, fescue and bent, with a links mindset, the players are more accepting of a bumpiness.

And really, the ball goes too far.

On another day we can continue to lament how much course setup manipulation must take place to mask regulatory mistakes and debate how vital it is for golf to slow greens down.

In the meantime, I'd prefer to celebrate a magnificent week at Carnoustie made special by Mother Nature baking out an outstanding course. As I note in the Golfweek piece, Carnoustie has had a troubled relationship with the rota at times, but brilliant maintenance management by Craig Boath's team, mostly great work by the R&A and a hot, dry summer allowed the links to remind people of its great strategic character.

Herculean: Ariya Headed For Coronation As Shoal Creek Is Somehow Playable

As Ariya Jutanagarn is positioned for a likely U.S. Women's Open victory (Beth Ann Nichols with a great read at Golfweek.com), it's the grounds crew that has kept the place playable despite absurdly unfair circumstances. 

Writing for USGA.org, Julie Williams highlights the work of Shoal Creek's Rex Davis and crew.

The week could have played out very differently. Davis noted that 15 days before the championship, Shoal Creek was playing firm and fast. The greater Birmingham area had seen limited rainfall.

“The golf course was playing the way we intended it to play,” Davis said. “Then Mother Nature threw us a curveball and we had to adapt.”

New greens went in at Shoal Creek in the fall of 2016. Given the moisture, they haven’t been as fast as Davis would have liked, but the drainage has helped to keep the championship close to schedule. Shoal Creek’s new greens drain at a rate that is four times faster than the old greens.

As Davis eyed the approach of subtropical storm Alberto, he started making preparations. Shoal Creek staff mowed the fairways seven times and the rough three times in the week before the championship, also applying growth regulators to the grass. Knowing the golf course might take on large amounts of rainfall, Davis had crews clearing pine straw and other ground cover from every place they anticipated that water would run through the property. 

Minimalist Maintenance Is Not More Expensive, Contrary To Popular Opinion

I've always been particularly fascinated at the idea of minimalist course designs costing more to maintain.

The concept is generally perpetrated by the tin siding-salesman masquerading as golf architects who sometimes plaid jackets and would just as soon be selling you a policy as they would be in designing interesting, affordable golf holes. They also don't really like the minimalist movement for a variety of reasons, from general point missing to just wanting to sell projects on goods and services they don't need.

Born out of this have been derogatory whisper campaigns about the perils of going minimalist, including the contradictory notion that bunkers maintained as rough hazards take more time and money to present than those edged weekly and raked daily. 

So as accustomed to this completely bizarre take as we subscribers to the movement have become, it was a bit disheartening to read Gary Van Sickle's MorningRead.com take suggesting AT&T Byron Nelson Classic host site Trinity Forest was an example of the kind of "high-maintenance, slow-play golf course" the game needs less of.

Had Van Sickle been there to hear Jordan Spieth mention whizzing around the course in two-hours--golf board aided--or seen the turf, I wonder if this take might have been different:

Golf needs low-maintenance, fast-play golf courses. Trinity Forest is a high-maintenance, slow-play golf course. Did you see some of those massive bunkers? An amateur could spend five minutes raking his or her way out of the trap.

Greens are the most expensive parts of a golf course to maintain, and Trinity Forest has gigantic greens. One double green is 35,000 square feet. Pebble Beach’s front-nine greens would almost fit in that corral.

It’s ironic that Trinity Forest seemed like a breath of fresh air with its different look and myriad challenges, but it is not an economically viable model for golf in most areas.

Actually, it is. 

Despite the deep pockets of the members, the maintenance approach is pretty restrained.

Reviewing my notes from an interview with superintendent Kasey Kauff, he noted Trinity's full staff for the course is a very normal 24, including assistants and technicians.

Fairways are cut twice a week while bunkers are raked at the same rate (with touch ups). The greens are mown just five days a week in peak season, once or twice a week in the winter. 

Thanks to the slow-growing zoysia and lean watering program, bunkers are rarely edged. Fertilization is at half the rate of a Bermuda grass golf course. Half. 

As for slow play, maintenance and design are not to blame for threesomes in a full field PGA Tour event not getting around in a timely manner. When today's players can reach all par-5s in two and at least one par-4 in one, that's a distance discussion and sometimes a green speed discussion. Trinity Forest's greens were at a modest 10.5 on the Stimpmeter.

Yes, Trinity Forest is a wealthy membership with a token First Tee facility and it took millions to convert a landfill into a course only a select few rich guys can join. Quibble with that stuff all day long if you must. But suggesting the design is an example of high-cost maintenance and slow play maintenance would not be accurate. 

Video: Rare Scenes Of Masters Course Preparation

I'm not sure what year this is from but the piece was just posted on the Masters YouTube channel. I know I've seen snippets of this footage before, but it's still fun to see how much goes on before the Masters gates open at 8 am.

Initial Findings Confirm Faster Greens Mean Slower Play

While this is a shock to almost no one, we've never had solid statistical evidence that the chase for faster greens slows down play. Anyone who has some of the best putters on the planet mark 18 inch putts when greens are pushing 14 realizes speed forces caution for even the very best.

The USGA and University of Minnesota have teamed up for some very intriguing Science of the Green studies, and while it's early you have to admire their release of findings from a recent green speed/pace study at Poppy Hills. Parker Anderson explains the methodology, the plans for more extensive efforts and it's all worth reading, but of course we'll cut to the chase here:

An increase of one foot in Stimpmeter reading resulted in an increase of 6.39 seconds per green per player.  This one foot increase equates to an increase in total round time of a foursome of 7.67 minutes. In some instances, the increase in time spent per player per green resulted in an increase of as much as 30 minutes per round for a one foot increase in green speed (25 seconds per player per green). Overall, playing experience ratings decreased as green speeds increased. This decrease, although statistically significant, was small.

In conclusion, we found that faster greens equate to longer round times. The strength of this relationship, however, is not as substantial as we had hypothesized.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but I would disagree that the number is insignificant.

On these findings of one foot of speed increase, greens Stimping 9 for a foursome would take 76 seconds less to play a hole than a group dealing with 12 on the Stimpmeter. Over the course of 18 holes that adds up to over 20 minutes. Throw in the added cost, stress and architectural impact, all of which do not improve the game, and the chase for speed continues to make little sense.

Considering The Chances Of Another Major At Chambers Bay

For anyone hosting a major or thinking of doing so, Tony Dear's Links piece is worth a read given the high-profile Chambers Bay experiment.

As the story notes, it succeeded on the financial and ratings front, but agronomically left a scar that is now being rectified by a creative conversion to poa greens.

Since June 2015, Johnson has increased cultural inputs (mowing, rolling, fertilizer, pesticide, water) to favor annual bluegrass establishment, and is seeding the greens with the only commercially available annual bluegrass turf—Poa reptans Two-Putt. “The good news,” he says, “is that it establishes pretty well. The bad news is that its prolific seedhead production in the first year or so gives the greens that blotchy appearance.”

Johnson has also begun saving and analyzing clipping yields from the greens in an effort to monitor growth and make better decisions on when to cut, seed, fertilize, and irrigate. “Every-day play is our focus as a public course,” he says. “I want smooth greens as well as consistent speed and firmness.”

On the financial side, Chambers continued the trend of public-access venues raking in more money for the USGA (we won't know how Erin Hills fared for a while):

According to its Annual Report, USGA revenue from its Open championships (U.S. Open, U.S. Senior Open, U.S. Women’s Open) in 2016, when the U.S. Open was played at Oakmont, was $53.3m. In 2015, it was $64.3m. 

The irony in all of this is that Chambers would make a great PGA Championship venue...in August. May? Not so much. Though still certainly doable and capable of bringing big energy and bigger West Coast ratings.