Woods, Mickelson, Spieth and Others: How Chambers Bay Will Play for U.S. Open

The county-owned Chambers Bay Golf Club, site of the U.S. Open, sits on what was once the largest sand and gravel operation in the country. No more.

What remains from those days are the concrete structures, like a modern-day Stonehenge or the ruins of an abandoned, ancient Greek town. Today, picturesque golf holes crawl across the undulating landscape, around and through the stone-like relics, ready to test contestants at this year's U.S. Open.  

Four competitors for the U.S. Open have what might be considered an edge, if there is such a thing before a championship like this. They are Ryan Moore, who is from the Seattle area; Michael Putnam, whose father lives close enough to walk to the course; Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed, both of whom played the course in the U.S. Amateur in 2012.

Two contestants, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, have seen the course and played practice rounds.

Speith and Reed still remember their experiences at the U.S. Amateur.

"It's going to be a lot of speed control. I think it's going to be a lot of judging the undulation. It's going to be different short-game shots, almost like you're playing an Open Championship," Spieth said. "You need to learn whether you're going to putt it off of these slopes. It's going to be really tight and kind of dry, so it's going to be—you are going to need to practice flying some ridges with spin, if you have a hybrid shot."

"If it blows and it's a little cool out there, it's going to be a tough golf course," Reed said. "I remember in stroke play, the golf course was getable. It was a little warmer; there wasn't too much wind. And then we had a cold front move in, and it was a little chilly, rainy and blowing a little bit. It turned out to be a really tough golf course."

He said the course is not particularly spectator friendly, but that is not a secret. The USGA has severely limited the number of tickets sold and has even warned media that it's a tough walk.

According to Ryan Moore, the property is about 15 miles from his childhood home, but it was not there when Moore grew up. For him, it's more about the U.S. Open being close to his hometown.

"Just to play it [U.S. Open] in your own area, I assume I'll get some pretty good fan and crowd support out there. And it will just be fun," Ryan said. "It may be the only time in my entire life I get to play a tournament really where I'm from."

Everyplace he goes, he's asked about the course. "Players, caddies, media, somebody, every day, somewhere is asking about it," Moore added.

While he has not played the course often, Moore has played it a few times.

"It's not a links course that just looks like one that we're going to play later this summer," he added. "This is going to play like a links golf course. You're going to have to keep it low to the ground and using 5‑woods and hybrids and bumping and running it."

According to GolfChannel.com's Rex Hoggard, Putnam's brother, Dan, caddies at the course and has traversed 500 rounds or more since it opened. He's certainly going to have local insight from his brother.

Spieth also has a caddie connection. His man, Michael Greller, worked at Chambers Bay before becoming Spieth's caddie.  

"Michael told me some shots that I needed to get ready for Chambers. He walked it a few weeks ago a couple of times," Spieth said at The Memorial. "I need a shot I can trust from the runoff areas. The greens are massive, so controlling your speed on these longer putts, you're not going to be able to feed it into a lot of these pins."

The 17th Hole of Chambers Bay in University Place, Wash. on Monday, June 30, 2014. (Copyright USGA/John Mummert)

Woods and Mickelson have both made trips to the property.

Woods does not agree with others about how the course will play.

"People don't really have a true appreciation for it until they get out there," Woods said, adding that there are big elevation changes. "They're going to say, yeah, it looks like a links course, but it's not going to play like a links course. You're going to have to throw the ball up." 

"The first time you play it, it's like St. Andrews. You don't know where to go. You don't know what mounds do what to do the ball," Mickelson said. "Then the more you play it, the more you like it and you appreciate it. You understand where the balls are going to go and what type of shot is the highest-percentage shot and how to get to certain pins and so forth."

Mickelson said it's the most like a British Open course outside of the U.K.

"The exact same grasses. I've never seen this type of fescue in the United States. I've never seen greens with fescue grass in the United States," he explained. "It plays exactly like the British Open plays. The ball runs like the British; you're hitting the same shots as the British, and so it's like a British Open in the U.S."

Because of the difference between Chambers Bay and the typical PGA Tour course, Spieth, at least, may change out equipment. He may taking a driving iron which he will use instead of a hybrid if it is windy.

"That's what I do going into an Open Championship [British Open]," he added.

He will not change his lob wedge.

"The bounce on my lob wedge is almost none, and I think that's going to be very beneficial next week—that I'm used to hitting something with no bounce," he added.

Though others have practiced or played the course, the real contender, Rory McIlory, had not seen Chambers Bay as of the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open.

"No one is going to go out there and play 10 practice rounds," McIlroy suggested after winning the Wells Fargo. "I'm going to go up a little early. I'm going to play a couple practice rounds the weekend before, and then I'll probably play another, you know, 18 holes."

In the final analysis, the answer to who will succeed may be in the wind.

If it is windy, then luck factors into the result, and the wind affects the high ball hitters like McIlroy and Mickelson. Both, however, have won a British Open. Spieth grew up and played in Texas, known for its windy conditions. Woods is not U.S. Open ready. Reed is a wild card. Moore has been hanging around leaderboards lately. 

While they all have some special insight that the rest of the field lacks, it may be that none of them will be the champion.

The only thing for sure, at least according to Woods, is that there will be some high scores.

"I've seen the footage from the U.S. Amateur there," he said. "They had, let's see, 300 rounds—300‑plus rounds the first two days of the qualifier, and three guys shot under par. That's how it can play. They had only 10 percent of the guys hit the first green when they played it as a par four. 

"Patrick Reed, I played with him this week, and he told me that he won his first match on the first hole with a nine, so you can see some interesting numbers happening out there."

Kathy Bissell is a Golf Writer for Bleacher Report. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were obtained first-hand or from official interview materials from the PGA Tour, USGA, R&A or PGA of America.