Chambers Bay ranked No. 20 on Golfweek's List of Best Modern Courses

Thursday, 11 March 2010

No. 1 Sand Hills

Chambers Bay, the Robert Trent Jones/Bruce Charlton/Jay Blasi-designed course in University Place that is hosting this year's US Amateur Championship and the 2015 US Open, has been ranked 20th in Golfweek Magazine's newly published list of the country's top modern courses (built after 1960). No. 19 on last year's list and No. 2 on 2009's list of the country's top municipals (behind Bethpage Black, site of last year's US Open), Chambers Bay scored 7.6 points out of a possible ten. America's best modern course, according to the magazine's 550 raters, is Nebraska's Sand Hills which was designed by Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore and opened in 1995. It scored 9.34 points, beating out Oregon's Pacific Dunes by .11 of a point. The 100th ranked course was Windsong Farms in Minnesota. The John Fought/Tom Lehman creation scored 6.77 points.
Chambers Bay obviously emerged as the top-ranked public-access course in the state. The top-ten was as follows;

1. Chambers Bay, University Place (No. 20 m)
2. Palouse Ridge, Pullman (m)
3. Wine Valley, Walla Walla (m)*
4. Loomis Trail, Blaine (m)*
5. Olympic Course at Gold Mountain, Bremerton (m)
6. Indian Canyon, Spokane (c)
7. Semiahmoo, Blaine (m)
8. Trophy Lake Golf & Casting, Port Orchard (m)
9. Suncadia (Prospector), Roslyn (m)
10. Home Course, DuPont (m)

m - modern
c - classic
* - new to list