This story appears in ESPN The Magazine's June 22 eSports Issue. Subscribe today!
BY THE TIME of the U.S. Open (June 18-21), the Chambers Bay course near Tacoma, Washington, will be just shy of its eighth birthday, making it the youngest venue to host the Open in 45 years. This is great news for fans of golf held on untested, bedeviling, windswept links -- less good news for golfers hacking their way around it for the first time. Lucky for Masters champ and 21-year-old wunderkind Jordan Spieth, he has a dogleg up on his rivals. His caddie, Michael Greller, is a former local looper at Chambers Bay and thus owns more insight than most into this chessboard of a course that offers, as he puts it, "more options than any U.S. Open ever." To wit: Holes 1, 16 and 18 are veritable accordions, able to be expanded and contracted at the whim of the USGA -- and the holes where the U.S. Open will likely be won and lost. Here, Greller reveals how to pass Chambers' tests.
IF IT'S A PAR 4 | 496 YARDS
Greller: "You're faced with one of the toughest -- if not the toughest -- holes on the course. Any tee shot hanging out to the right (1), good luck finding your ball. Anything in the left rough, it'll be nearly impossible to reach the green. If you hit the fairway, you should have a midiron in, depending on the wind direction."
IF IT'S A PAR 5 | 598 YARDS
"This bunker (2) is about 320 yards out. It'll gobble up any tee shot right; these fairways are firm and fescue-based, so balls are really gonna roll. This mound (3) blocks out part of the left side of the fairway. It's about 320 to clear that. The left rough is extremely thick and will force a layup."
ON THE GREEN
"Anything at the left-center or left edge of the green will be repelled by a ridge, leaving you with a very difficult bump-and-run into the bank. You have to be right of any pin on the left. But if you end up in the dune right, there's a good chance you won't hold the green."
IF IT'S DRIVABLE | 323 YARDS*
Greller: "On the days they set the hole up to be drivable, they'll probably use the back pin, which I think is the toughest on the course. It's about nine or 10 yards wide back there. If you do go for it and you miss your drive left (1), you have almost no chance of getting anywhere within 50 feet of that pin. You have to play toward the middle or front part of the green and just hope that it somehow doesn't roll into the right bunker. You could see someone make a two here and someone make a five or six."
IF IT'S NOT DRIVABLE | 423 YARDS
"It's a pretty generous landing area. This should be one of the most hit fairways. I like my guy hitting it a max of 295 off the tee (2) -- which will be a 3-wood for a lot of guys with how firm and fast it'll be playing. There's a premium on controlling your wedge shot into the green. Everything kicks hard left to right, so you don't want to miss it left. It's a very fast putt or chip back toward the Puget Sound on the right."
IF IT'S A PAR 4 | 525 YARDS
Greller: "These bunkers on the left (1) aren't really in play; it'll be 250 yards to carry them. You can even get to the green if you miss left (2). But if you're in this bunker down the right (3), you have no chance. The shot calls for some kind of midiron from there, but the depth of the bunker won't allow you to do that."
IF IT'S A PAR 5 | 604 YARDS
"Hit a good drive (4) and you've got from 230 to 260 to the green -- all uphill. Let's call it 260. If you cover 250 (5), you take the right bunkers out of play; that's a big reward. But lay back and this deep bunker (6) can be worse than a water hazard."
ON THE GREEN
"The green is probably the trickiest one on the course. It has four different sections, and if you get on the wrong tier, it's an extremely difficult two-putt. Everything funnels right to left, so if you're in the right bunker when the pin is on the right, you're in trouble. You have to miss left so you're chipping or putting back up the hill."
Jordan Spieth, By The Numbers
All data through June 10