It may be January and still months from the heart of the golf season but this is the time when we tend to look ahead at what excitement awaits us in 2015.
The major championship season has a new flavor this year. After we all get our Masters buzz on at Augusta National with its faultless carpet of green and picture perfect layout we’ll be going back to the future at the remaining majors.
Golf fans should savor all the “green” of The Masters because the color of choice at the majors after that moves towards brown, definitely brown.
Along with the color change comes a move away from the parkland style of golf to the trendy “links style” of golf.
Starting with the U.S. Open the majors will be played on layouts which all can be described as links style courses.
Chambers Bay
The USGA is continuing its trend of bringing the hardest test in golf to public courses. Chambers Bay is just eight years old and built on land previously used as a sand and gravel mine and a waste water treatment plant.
Set alongside Puget Sound the land gave Robert Trent Jones II the opportunity to build a links course.
While some may argue if Chambers Bay is a true links courses next to St. Andrews this is the truest of the links course in the ’15 major rotation.
Golfers can play the ball along the ground as well as the traditional American game of through the air.
The week at Chambers Bay will be very interesting as we get to see some intriguing links golf and who can navigate this newcomer to the U.S. Open.
The next stop on the Major Links Tour is the classic of the classics: The Old Course at St. Andrews.
The Old Course
There can be no argument here; this is links golf at the most hallowed place in golf. The fast and firm, the burn, the Firth of Forth, the shared greens, the wind, the Road Hole, the Valley of Sin and all the rest will be on display at the 144th Open Championship.
There isn’t much to be said about the Old Course that hasn’t been said a thousand times but watching golf at the old course is almost as good as playing on the Old Course.
It never disappoints, after all we call it the Home of Golf… don’t we?
The final major and the last chance for fame and glory is the PGA Championship and it returns to the Straights Course at Whistling Straights in Wisconsin.
The Straights Course
The PGA of America loves the Straights Course as it returns to the shores of Lake Michigan for the third time in eleven years. Five years have passed since their last visit here when Dustin Johnson gave the PGA away when he didn’t realize he was in a bunker. Martin Kaymer cleaned up that mess for his first major championship.
Now, they, as in the folks at the Herb Kohler owned American Club of which the Straights Course is a part of likes to advertise the course as a links style course. But this is the least of the links style in the ’15 rotation.
While it may appear as a links style layout it is anything but. The American style of “golf through the air” will work best here as the turf is more parkland than links and there are few occasions where a links style run-up shot can be played.
That doesn’t make the course any less intimidating as it will certainly test all those who tee it up in August.
The 2015 major season is still three months away but with these interesting, challenging and unique locations are sure to give us a very memorable major season. I can’t wait.
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