George Ferguson column: A humbling, but rewarding day

If you're a golf fan, and a fan of golf courses, then tune in to the U.S. Amateur this weekend.

Why? Because it's being played on the already infamous Chambers Bay Golf Course in Tacoma, Wash.

I'm a fan of both golf and great golf courses and I've wanted to play Chambers since I was out in Washington three years ago, the year it opened. Well, thanks again to Marc Mariani, because his preseason NFL game in Seattle two weeks ago gave me that chance.

But after my round at Chambers was over, I was left wanting to thank almost no one, at least in the first few hours following my, well, I'm going to leave my scorecard out of this.

If you don't know about Chambers Bay, it's a true Scottish links course with one tree on the entire property, and it has only been open for three years yet is already hosting the U.S. AM, and has been granted the 2015 U.S. Open. This course is a thing of beauty, with Puget Sound as its signature backdrop.

It's a course I'd been dying to play and when I got my chance, I took it.

There are no motorized carts at Chambers, and although I knew it was a monster — the hills are as steep and taxing as anything I've traversed in my life, I was determined to play it the way it was meant. No caddie for hire, no pull cart. I'm 35 years old. I can carry my own bag and walk 18 holes, no matter how many climbs I had to make. Even my playing partner, and infamous former Havre Daily News employee, had a pull cart.

Well, long story short, I got my Chambers experience and I actually lived to tell about it. It doesn't matter what I shot, and it doesn't matter that I was nearly dead the last three holes and was completely incapable of making a decent golf swing, I conquered the beast that until I arrived there the morning of our round, I was so naive about.

I guess there's a reason an airport-type shuttle van has to drive you from the clubhouse to the first tee. I just didn't realize that reason would almost require me to need climbing boots and an oxygen mask to play golf.

Still, I couldn't have asked for a better day, regardless that I was almost incapable of walking around Seattle for the next three days.

I played a U.S. Open Golf Course, and according to some of the staff at Chambers, I played it at a time when it was playing longer, faster and more difficult than it ever has, because of the pending U.S. AM.

I was humbled by Chambers Bay, but it was worth every blister and all the therapy I needed after the round.

If you ever need to be humbled by golf but amazed by its beauty at the same time, then I recommend a trip to Chambers. It's beauty and the beast all rolled into one.

(George Ferguson is sports editor of the Havre Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected].)