IF YOU'RE A GOLF COURSE AFICIONADO, this is going to be a great weekend for watching golf on television. First, the Barclays is at Ridgewood Country Club in New Jersey. The course may not be well known nationally, but in the metropolitan New York area, this A.W. Tillinghast design is a must play.
But the course that I'm most interested in watching is Chambers Bay, host of the U.S. Amateur. Normally, the Amateur is a test to see whether a course is suitable for the U.S. Open, but since Chambers Bay is already slated to hold the 2015 U.S. Open, this week's is a dress rehearsal, to help the USGA figure out how they want to set up the course and whether it needs any tweaks over the next five years.
From spectators to architects to officials, there will be plenty of interested Chambers Bay observers—both on site and from afar—but none will be more interested than Terry Olson and Greg Brown. The pair formed the key component of a remarkable feat, which happened to take place on the day I played Chambers Bay, August, 13, 2008.