USGA will offer sidehill, downhill tee boxes at U.S. Open

Chambers Bay Golf Course, including the signature lone tree, is seen from the clubhouse in University Place, Wash. (AP) The U.S. Open at Chambers Bay in June near Tacoma, Wash., is going to be a unique test.

For one, it’s the first time it’s hosted a major championship. Despite hosting the 2010 U.S. Amateur, almost the entire field will have never seen the course before playing practice rounds. (Jordan Spieth’s caddie, Michael Greller, used to loop there. So, there’s another Spieth edge.)

The Robert Trent Jones Jr.-designed course is a links-inspired track that can play firm and fast on a normal day, much less without tricking up by the USGA in an effort to protect par. It’s also very quirky, requiring players to gather as much local knowledge as they can so that they can make good decisions during the tournament.

In fact, local knowledge is so critical that USGA executive director Mike Davis strongly encouraged players to get in as many practice rounds as possible ahead of the National Open.

“I would contend that there is no way a player will have success here at Chambers Bay unless he really studies the golf course and learns it,” Davis said Monday at Chambers Bay for U.S. Open Media Day. “The idea of coming in and playing two practice rounds and just walking it and using your yardage book, that person is done. Will not win the U.S. Open.”

And it doesn’t get any easier from there. Davis said that he will set up the course with tee boxes that aren’t flat. That’s right.

“One of the things that’s unique to this is the architects put in what they refer to it as ribbon tees, these tees that just kind of meander, and it allows us to put tee markers where we want,” he said. “And in some cases we may end up putting tee markers on slight slopes as opposed to you think, well, you’re always going to have teeing markers on very flat areas. But there may be some where we give the players a little downhill slope, a little uphill slope, a side slope. So that’s interesting.”

Or infuriating. Add in a litany of blind shots and unclear bounces, and the person that’s going to win this Open is going to be the one that studies hard and embraces the unpredictable.

“This is a one-of-a-kind site for us at a U.S. Open,” Davis said. “There is going to be some players that just love this ground game and love the imagination and embrace it. And then there are other players who just want predictability. They want something right in front of them. They don’t want to have to guess what is going to happen after the ball lands. It’s just a different mindset.”

Ryan Ballengee is a Yahoo Sports contributor. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.

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