Tiered Greens
Along with firm conditions and sideboards, tiered greens at Chambers Bay serve as triumvirate of course features designed to aid mid to high handicappers while challenging the very best players.
Tiered greens, greens with multi-level surfaces separated by ridges and elevation changes, make it easier for weekend hackers to hit the green due to their extra-large size. Putting, even from great distance, is much easier for hackers than trying to chip out of greenside rough or even worse, out of bunkers.
For pros, a tiered green is a plague. For them, the effective target area shrinks greatly as you must be on the same tier as the pin to have any reasonable chance at a birdie. With a firm green, this is doubly so as it may require hitting different tiers to end up in the desired tier. If you are unlucky and end up in a tier above the pin, two putts may not be enough to end up in the hole.
With the five-tiered green, #18 may have the most complex green at Chambers and it will provide a formidable challenge to the players. Everything you do on this hole must be viewed from the pin backwards. Plenty of players will find themselves in situations that they are unfamiliar with. Opportunity is there for a great dramatic finish to a major.
US Open Changes
This hole has gone through as much changes as any on Chambers Bay. The most obvious is the option of playing it as a par 4. There is enough teeing ground to make this hole play as a 450 yard to 550 yard par 4. I expect this hole to play at around 500 to 520 yards when it is playing as a par 4.
The waste area between the tee box and the fairway (F) has been lengthened to occupy the entire right side of the landing zone. This narrowed the fairway in the landing zone by at least a third. This makes what club to use (especially when playing as a par 5) a much more difficult decision as both sides of the landing zone is now lined with sand.
You also have to think hard about your layup shot as there is a very deep and wide coffin bunker (M) in the middle of the fairway about 150 yards from the green.
I am not a big fan of these changes as I believe they eliminate a lot of the risk/reward scenarios for this hole for regular golfers while not affecting pro players much. There has been some talk about getting rid of the coffin bunker after the Open, and I hope that is true.
Tee Shot – Par 5
What tee shot you hit here depends on whether or not you have a realistic shot at reaching the green in two. With the hole playing at around 600 yards, this is not going to be likely without a strong tailwind. If not going for it in two, it makes very little sense to challenge the narrow landing zone for a shorter layup shot. The smart play here is to hit a hybrid or an iron well short of the bunkers on the left (A &B) where the fairway is close to 100 yards wide. Another hybrid shot will put you within a lob/sand wedge from the green. I fail to see any logic in hitting a driver here if you cannot reach the green in two.
The main problem with hitting a driver is that two left bunkers come in to play (A & B). These are pretty nasty bunkers as they have a fairly steep face and balls usually roll through the bunker and end up just below the overhangs which may preclude you from hitting anything other than a wedge. These are not bunkers that you want to challenge.
It is even worse if you end up above (I) or between bunkers (D) as rough will be thick and heavy. The entire left half is to be avoided.
Hitting the bunker on the right (F) is easier as there is no face to deal with (unless your ball just rolls in to the bunker), and you should have a fairly level lie with a good view of the target area. However, there are various finger intrusions and islands that can complicate things very quickly. Missing further to the right is actually not terrible as there is a plateau above the sand (G) and vegetation here is thin (and will be trampled down by crowd). If you are going to miss, miss to the right.
Tee Shot – Par 4
Now, you don’t have a choice, you must hit a driver to have any hopes of reaching the green in two. The long hitters have a huge advantage here as they should be able to fly most of the trouble and land short (H) of the cross fairway bunker on the right (I). If you are Rory or Dustin, you just grip and rip it.
For shorter hitters, you have about a 25 yard wide target you need to hit (E), preferably with a little draw, and hope that you get by the gauntlet. If you end up in either bunker, you will have no hopes of hitting the green in regulation.
Lay UpThe layup shot here is all about the coffin bunker (M). Any ball that ends up there is an automatic bogey as it is impossible to reach the green from the bottom of this bunker.
If you are in one of the left bunkers (A or B or in the rough), the prudent decision is to layup short of the coffin bunker about 200 yards away (K). You can still hit a pitching wedge (or 9 iron) from just short of the bunker, there is really no reason to challenge the bunker if you do not have a good lie. The fairway is very wide here, you should take advantage of what the course gives you.
If you are in the right bunker (F), you have more options as the area to the right of the coffin bunker is very wide and accessible from this angle. As long as you stay short of the greenside bunker (O) on the right, any shot here (L) will leave you with a lob wedge approach. The right side is also tilted left, so any slight miss to the right should find its way back towards the middle of the green (but it should not roll all the way to the coffin bunker).
From the fairway, you need to think about where the pin is and what kind of approach shot you want to hit towards it. If the pin is in the left, going past the bunker towards the narrow neck short of the green is going to give you a big advantage on your next shot. The same goes for any kind of a back side pin. If the pin is in the front right, you may want to lay up just short of the greenside bunker where you can use the backstop to help you get the ball close to the pin.
Approach – Long IronEven if you hit a great drive, you will most likely end up with 200+ yards, uphill, to the green. With this much carry, one must be hyper-aware of how firm the green is and how your ball will interact with the green.
If the pin is in the right front (4), going for the pin is a foolish adventure. To stay within the front right tier, you would have to hit the green just so, past the front lip that will turbo-kick your ball to the back of the green, just short of the front ridge so that you hit it on the second bounce. If you do not pull this off, you will end up in the tier just above where you will pray that you can keep the ball on the green with your putt.
Any back pin is no gimme. You have to weight it so that it is enough to carry the back ridge up to the back tier, but without so much momentum that it will ride up the backstop and end up in the rough above the green (Q), from which you are looking at a bogey or worse.
For any front pin, your best bet is to bump and run up the left opening (N). Without a significant left to right fade, the ball will just stay to the left side of the green away from the middle (R), but you will have an uphill/level putt to the front pin positions which means going up and down is a reasonable proposition.
For middle and back pins, you must judge your carry precisely to land in the front tiers and ride the ridge up to the middle tier. Going directly for the back pin is just too risky. It is better to leave yourself a difficult putt than have an impossible downhill chip coming back.
If you ended up in the rough or a bunker, you have no choice here but to lay up (see above). You can try to ride up the left side, up the narrow neck to the green with a decent lie, but it will be very difficult.
It is imperative not to take too much risk going for the pin here. There are too many things that could go wrong. You must stay below the pin and there are not many ways to achieve this goal.
Approach – WedgeIf you ended up in the coffin bunker, the choice is simple, just get it out of the bunker.
If you have successfully negotiated around the coffin bunker, you must now test your wedge distance control. With a height and spin that a wedge generates, you should be able to access any pin position, especially front and middle. As long as you are precise, there is a pretty good chance that you will have a makeable putt. The main thing to avoid is going long. You can always recover from below the pin, you cannot say the same from above.
The back pin will be more difficult. As long as you hit the space between the front ridge and the back sideboards, your ball should stop. However, if you fly just little too far, the ball will hit the sideboard and ricochet back down the green, far away from the pin. This would still be preferable to flying too far and ending up in the rough above the back tier. It may be preferable to hit a low chip that will land in the middle tier and ride up to the back tier. If I was playing at US Open, 50 to 100 yard low running shot is something I would practice a lot.
Around the GreenIf you made a major mistake and ended up in the rough above the green (Q), do not compound your mistake, just take your medicine and bail out to the right. Yes, your ball will probably roll down to the fairway, but at least you will have some options coming back. You don’t want to risk leaving it in the side or front bunkers.
If you are in the front bunker (O), as long as you have a good lie, all pin positions are available to you, albeit it will be completely blind. It is not the worst place to play out of to this green.
From the side bunker (P), you need to be realistic about how quickly you can stop your ball. You may be able to use the back ridge (or sideboard) to slow your ball down if the lie is not ideal. Trying to attack the pin below you may not be wise as you may have to hit another shot out of a bunker afterwards.
If you are playing from the neck just short of the green (N), you need to be creative about where you are trying to go. There are multiple options as all the movements within and around the green can be used for various purposes. During US Am, I saw a lot of players hit flop shots from here. It is not something I would recommend for normal players as the lie here is very tight, but with the skills that these guys have, that is definitely an option. Putting is also a very good option as distance control is very important and some pin positions are not really accessible to chip shots.
Putting
If you putting from a higher tier to the lower one, your number one priority is to leave the ball on the green. You should disregard where the pin is. This may require you to hit towards right edge or left edge of the green so that you can sling the ball back towards the middle from the side. Any direct putt down the ridge may not stop at all, no matter how delicate your touch is.
Conversely, going up the hill will take enormous effort as the ridges are steep and there is about 15 feet elevation change between back of the green to the front. There is a general right to left tilt that you must take into account. For back pins, you may want to use the back sideboards to slow your putt down and bring it back towards the pin.
Almost every tier has severe back to front and right to left tilt. The right to left can be tricky to read some times, but most are pronounced. However, most uphill putts will be very straight and makeable (within the same tier).
There is a small knob in the middle between three tiers where all sides fall off (1). If USGA is feeling particularly evil, they will place the pin there. At that point, you should just hit and pray.