It is hardly a secret that the game’s governing bodies do not compare notes with regard to the venues selected for the game’s majors; a different organisation runs each of the four.
But the sameness of the major venues for 2015 borders on the comical. The first will be played, as always, at the former plant nursery known as Augusta National, but the last three will have environmental folks laughing out loud.
Prepare to hear the term “links-style” so often, it will seem like a GIF loop, since the last three venues are built alongside large bodies of water and feature nary a tree.
The US Open will be played at Chambers Bay, a course outside Seattle, Washington, which is hosting the event for the first time. The barren topography of Chambers Bay features, to be precise, one tree, a Douglas fir planted behind the 15th green.
The British Open returns to the sport’s seminal links course, St Andrews, which grows plenty of sticky heather and gorse, but little else.
Finally, the PGA Championship for the third time will visit tricky Whistling Straits, a links knock-off on the shore of Lake Michigan, in Wisconsin, where the only true obstacles are the dozens of raw, undefined bunkers that dot the terrain.
The treeless trio will presumably identify a certain type of player, though determining the key skill set for contenders is guesswork at this point.
How about a guy who does not mind a complete lack of shade?
sports@thenational.ae
Follow us on Twitter @SprtNationalUAE
