Devil Ball Golf’s 18 for ’15 (Part 4): The best major venue of the year?

It’s time for Part 4 of 18 in Devil Ball Golf’s 2015 preview, where we’re looking at all aspects of golf heading into the New Year.

On an annual basis, we drum up a discussion about which major is the best. There are variations on the topic: which you’d best like to attend, the one you most want to win, maybe the one with the best storylines. The question we’re asking is which of the 2015 major venues is the best course.

Now, we’re taking Augusta National out of the running. For one, it’s the only major venue that doesn’t change. Secondly, it’s the best or second-best course in the country, depending on who you talk to, so that would skew the discussion. Instead, let’s focus on the three majors with rotating venues.

In 2015, Chambers Bay in Washington (U.S. Open), the Old Course at St. Andrews (Open Championship) and Whistling Straits in Wisconsin (PGA Championship) are up for debate.

The Old Course speaks for itself. It’s the Home of Golf and home to the game’s oldest major every five years — at least, in modern times. Golf lovers know the Old Course. Casual fans even know it, and it’s probably the only course in the Open rota that can make that claim.

However, modern technology has passed the Old Course by, leaving it susceptible to very low scores, like we saw in 2010 when Louis Oosthuizen blew away the field. Wind protects the Old Course from absurd scoring, but it’s still fun to watch in almost any circumstance. The only true blemish is the new tee box on the Road Hole 17th, which stands as one of the greatest failures of R&A chief executive George O’Grady, whose otherwise largely successful runs is coming to a close.

Whistling Straits hosts its third PGA Championship this coming August. The prior two PGAs ended in playoffs, with Vijay Singh coming through in 2004 and Martin Kaymer breaking through in 2010. Both should have been three-way playoffs, but Dustin Johnson’s penalty for grounding his club in a bunker that shouldn’t have been a bunker cost him a spot alongside Kaymer and Bubba Watson.

The Pete Dye design has wonderful scenery and can be, as many of Dye’s courses, visually intimidating. However, it’s never been considered an unfair track and the elite golf world’s familiarity with it as host of the season’s final major should make for a great stage.

Chambers Bay is the wild card this year. Robert Trent Jones Jr. shaped a beautiful course on this land situated with views of Puget Sound. Most golf fans won’t be familiar with it, but it showed as host of the 2010 U.S. Amateur that it can play firm and fast, which makes for the perfect U.S. Open host. Chambers will likely have been softened by the USGA and executive director Mike Davis in the intervening years, but it should prove as unique a challenge as a browned-out Pinehurst No. 2 did in 2014. Looking at the lineup of future U.S. Open venues, Chambers Bay, along with Erin Hills in 2017, should excited architecture aficionados. However, without seeing how it yet as a major host, it’s hard to rate Chambers the best of the three.

The Old Course is, well, old, but hard not to feel sentimental about seeing. Whistling Straits was slightly ahead of its time. Chambers Bay is part of the game’s modern reclamation movement.

We’re partial to the Old Course, so we’ll rate it best, but check back in after the Wanamaker is awarded in August; we might change our tune.

Read all of the Devil Ball Golf 18 for ’15: