UNIVERSITY PLACE, Wash. –– It is Saturday at Chambers Bay, site of next week's U.S. Open.
Five days before the first drive will be struck, U.S. Golf Association executive director Mike Davis is out on the golf course, migrating slowly from green to green, hitting putts from various angles and distances.
Putting likely will be the key to this year's U.S. Open. Although the U.S. Open has been played 114 times, it has never been contested on fescue greens.
Until this year. When fescue met Chambers Bay, it was a match made in turfgrass heaven.
"There is a good reason that no major championship in this country has ever been played on fescue greens," said Darin Bevard, the USGA's director of championship agronomy.