Chambers Bay superintendent always thinking ahead

CHIP SHOTS

BART POTTER | • Published June 06, 2008

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David Wienecke is playing golf, in this case on the fescue and dunes of Chambers Bay, the course where he is superintendent. He's playing, but there's a lot more going on. It’s part pride, part a professional’s critical sense of things. There’s a bit of paternal fussiness, too — a restless eye for tiny details that has him bending over and pulling bedstraw (he considers it a weed) near the No. 1 tee box and plucking a cigarette butt from close by the green on a later hole.

There’s irony that Wienecke, the steward and agronomist-in-chief of this remarkable golf course, rarely has time to play it. His game shows the rust.

But it can’t be said he doesn’t think like a golfer. He sees the course these days through the eyes of the elite players who will be here in 2015 when the golf world trains its spectacles on Chambers Bay and the U.S. Open.

He talks of sharply narrowing the fairway on No. 7 and less so on Nos. 1, 2 and 11 to ratchet up the difficulty for the world’s best players. He notes that the stunningly broad expanse of fairway on No. 13 will be kept wide open, though the pros will play it as a par-4.

It’s all for good golf reasons — for U.S. Open reasons.

Those decisions aren’t his to make — the United States Golf Association has a few thoughts on the subject — but it is his job to bring them to life.

The USGA works hard to uphold the reputation of the U.S. Open as the toughest major tournament, and Wienecke wants to make sure his course is up to the test.

The U.S. Amateur at Chambers Bay in 2010 will be a “dress rehearsal,” in the words of Mike Davis of the USGA. He’s the guy Wienecke will work most closely with, the guy who makes the call on where to narrow, where to widen, how tall the grass will be, how much the ball will roll.

Davis and the USGA will be watching the Amateur closely to see how the course might play in a major championship.

They’ll be on the lookout for “failure,” which by the USGA’s definition is when everybody hits the same shot and lands in the same place.