In an era in which the USGA has refrained from meaningfully regulating equipment, aligned its once-pure name with corporate sponsors and generally conducted itself like a wannabe Fortune 500 company, the range of potential stories emanating from Far Hills is, shall we say, a bit broader than it used to be.  Yet many of us were still caught off guard by the organization’s Friday announcement that the 2015 U.S. Open has been awarded to Chambers Bay, a brand-new Tacoma, Washington municipal course attractively spawned from a reclaimed Puget Sound gravel quarry.  

Understand: There isn’t a font bold enough to adequately emphasize just how brand-new we’re talking about here.  Chambers Bay, you see, has been open for all of seven months.  It has not yet hosted a single event of prominence, nor has it been seen, in any form or fashion, by at least 99.9% of the golfing world.  Indeed, this is a golf course which hasn’t even completed its first seasonal agronomical cycle yet.  So while the Tacoma organizers did agree to pay the now-common admission price of hosting an earlier U.S. Amateur (2010), it is hardly unreasonable to ask:

What gives?   (Continue)