Ranking Every Hole at Chambers Bay, Worst to Best

Chambers Bay is the rare course where the argument isn't whether it's good — it's which parts of it are great. The 2015 U.S. Open left a lot of people with a bad taste, most of it about greens that no longer exist. The poa conversion between 2017 and 2019 fixed the putting surfaces, and what's left is one of the best pieces of public golf ground in America: 250 acres of old gravel pit, no trees except one, and fairways wide enough that the fun comes from angles instead of survival.

Here's all 18 holes, ranked from worst to best.

#18 — Hole 8: High Road Low Road

The only hole here without real defenders. It's a long, dead-straight par 5 climbing along the eastern boundary of the property on two distinct fairway shelves, and while the fairway is wider than it looks from the tee, there's not much asked of you beyond hitting it forward three times. The green does have a good idea in it — approach from the high left side and you can see the surface, bail out right and you're blind — but you have to get through a lot of nothing to find out. MyGolfSpy called it the worst hole on the course and described it as a throwaway to get you up to the ninth tee, which is about right. In fairness, Fried Egg's Garrett Morrison likes it. He's in the minority.

#17 — Hole 11: Shadows

A long par 4 that plays straightaway while the fairway curls in and out of the dunes, with a central mound off the tee to think about and a green benched nicely into a right-to-left slope. There's real architecture here — miss right and the hillside feeds you back, miss left and you're well below the putting surface. The problem is placement. It's sandwiched between the 10th and the 12th, two of the most distinctive holes on the property, and it's simply the least interesting thing that happens to you in that stretch. It gets its name from the way evening light moves across the fairway, which tells you where its best quality lies.

#16 — Hole 1: Puget Sound

You come off the first tee looking straight down at the water with the whole property laid out in front of you, and that's the hole's job. The huge landform and bunker up the right pull your eye, but the genuine trouble is left of the green, where you can end up fifteen feet below the surface on short grass with no good options. As a par 4 it's a fair, slightly awkward opener with a partially blind second over the crest. As an introduction to the site it's unbeatable. As a golf hole it's a handshake.

#15 — Hole 3: Blown Out

A mid-iron par 3 to a kidney-shaped green, deep bunker guarding the left, a swale behind that gathers anything long, and a big kick slope right that redirects decent misses back toward the middle. It's a perfectly good short hole. It's also the fourth-best par 3 on a course where the other three are excellent, and being the forgettable one in that group is a hard way to live. The name is a nod to the wind, which is the only thing that ever makes it hard.

#14 — Hole 2: Foxy

Named for the 14th at Royal Dornoch and for Fox Island sitting in the background of the second shot. The tee ball plays through the dunes to a fairway that narrows down, and there's a genuine question in it: the shortest approach is from the left, but that side brings a big bunker into play, while the right side gives you an open running entrance to a green split by a large ridge. That's a real decision on a short par 4. It's just a quiet one, and it happens before you've fully woken up.

#13 — Hole 13: Eagle Eye

The widest fairway on the property, doglegging right along the northern edge of the course, and now playing as a par 5 at 519 from the black tees. The par change suits it. A big chunk of the fairway is blind from the tee, so trusting your line and taking on the right side leaves a real chance to get home in two, and there's a central bunker that forces you to pick a side on the approach. Miss badly and the knob left of the green will reject you, or the right side will slide away. It's good. It's also the hole most people forget they played.

#12 — Hole 12: The Narrows

The most polarizing hole at Chambers Bay. It's the narrowest corridor on the course, it's drivable, it's blind, and it's the steepest climb of the round packed into the shortest walk. The green sits in a punchbowl over 60 yards deep with enough contour that getting down in three from the wrong section counts as a decent outcome. Some people find that ridiculous. We find it the best kind of ridiculous — it's the only hole out here where you crest the hill genuinely not knowing what you'll find. Ranked here because the fun is real but the execution asks you to accept a lot.

#11 — Hole 7: Humpback

The hardest hole on the course and the hardest walk on the course, which is a difficult combination to love. It turns hard right and climbs the entire way; the aggressive line over the right-hand bunker buys you a shorter approach, while the safe play left leaves you blind over the two hummocks that give the hole its name. During the 2015 Open it produced 41 scores of double bogey or worse in a single week. We respect it more than we enjoy it, and we think most of you feel the same.

#10 — Hole 6: Deception Point

The sneaky one. It plays from an elevated tee to an elevated green, bending around berms covered in native grass, and the fairway contours quietly sort the aggressive from the timid — decline the inside of the dogleg and the ground pushes you left, where the approach angle gets ugly. The green slopes back to front and invites a low running shot. Fried Egg uses this hole to explain what makes Chambers Bay work for everyone: a scratch player has to hit two great shots to make birdie, and a 15-handicap can bogey it without ever being in real trouble.

#9 — Hole 5: Free Fall

One of the great views in Northwest golf and the hole where the scale of the place finally hits you. The tee sits well above a generous fairway with massive bunker complexes down both sides, and while the drive is straightforward, the green is where the hole earns its keep — a deep bunker sits in front of it, and the back half runs away into a low chipping area. Long approaches have to be run up one side or the other. Beautiful, honest, and a little bit one-dimensional off the tee, which keeps it out of the top eight.

#8 — Hole 15: Lone Fir

Yes, we know. This is the photo everybody takes home, the hole on the hat, the shot with the Sound behind it and the only tree on the property standing guard. It's also, by design, the simplest hole at Chambers Bay: a short downhill wedge from an exposed tee to a green that slopes left to right. That's not a criticism — short par 3s work precisely because you expect to get close, and adding wind and a downhill lie to that expectation is what makes it interesting. But strip away the scenery and there are seven holes out here doing more architectural work. Put it top three if you want. We won't fight hard.

#7 — Hole 4: Hazard's Ascent

One of the best par 5s on the course, named for one of the first men to summit Rainier, and it earns the comparison. The fairway climbs and tilts hard from left to right toward an immense bunker complex that runs most of the way to the green, so every shot you hit is fighting the ground. Long players can get home in two, but the green is framed by sand front and right with blowouts behind, and a right-hand pin leaves you surrounded on three sides. The climb is real, but unlike the 7th, you get paid for it.

#6 — Hole 17: Derailed

Two tees, two entirely different par 3s. From the lower tee it's a level shot with a long carry over the waste area; from the upper it's a drop shot with the whole green in view. Either way you're playing into the prevailing breeze with the BNSF line running the length of the right side, which is about as Scottish as American golf gets. The putting surface splits into two obvious halves, and when the pin is back right there's no version of the shot that both carries the front bunker and stops. Usually the hardest of the four par 3s and the best of them.

#5 — Hole 18: Tahoma

Pure theater. You tee off in the shadow of the old concrete sorting bins, play uphill through a fairway dotted with bunkers and swales, and somewhere out there sits the coffin bunker — ten feet deep, nine steps down, sitting nearly blind in the middle of the fairway 120 yards from the green. The caddies call it Chambers Basement. This is where Spieth and Johnson finished the 2015 Open, and there's a plaque in the fairway marking the 3-wood. It caught heat as a par 4 that week, and deservedly — Spieth called it the dumbest hole he'd ever played — but as the par 5 you'll play it as, it's a terrific closer with a bowl green that's friendlier than anything else out here.

#4 — Hole 9: Olympus

The tee is the highest point on the property, roughly 100 feet above a green you can see every inch of, with the entire course and the Olympic range spread out behind it. It's the best view in Northwest golf and it isn't close. It's also a genuinely hard shot: the green is oversized and slopes left to right, there's a nasty bunker short and right, and controlling distance on a long iron falling that far is close to guesswork. Most groups can't get a ball to stop on the front section. Views this good usually come with a soft hole attached. Not this one.

#3 — Hole 14: Cape Fear

The best tee shot at Chambers Bay. You stand up on a dramatic downhill par 4 and decide how much of a deep waste area you're willing to carry, and the reward isn't just distance — it's angle. Get left of the centerline bunker and the mound short right of the green funnels your approach onto the surface with the only real trouble safely away from you. Come in from the other side and that same mound sits in front of you like a trampoline, with the bunker waiting behind. A true cape hole in the Mid Ocean sense, and the most fun swing you'll take all day.

#2 — Hole 16: Beached

One of the best short par 4s in the country and the hole architecture people fly out here to see. A 60-yard-wide fairway runs alongside the railroad and the shoreline, with an enormous waste area flanking the entire right side. The safe play is left, and the safe play punishes you: from there the sidehill lie pushes you right, the green's contours push you right, and the narrow back tongue of the smallest green on the course is effectively unreachable. Challenge the sand, and everything opens up — the green runs 50 yards deep and the kicker slopes work for you instead of against you. Fried Egg calls it the most cleverly designed par 4 in the Pacific Northwest. Downwind, it's drivable. It's never the same hole twice.

#1 — Hole 10: High Dunes

Our top spot, and we'll defend it. The 10th splits the two largest sand dunes on the property — leftovers from the mining operation — into a valley fairway that feels genuinely narrow after nine holes of enormous width. That contrast is the whole trick: the fairway keeps tightening the closer you get to the green, so the tee shot is a real decision about how much you're willing to give up in position for length. Play short and the approach back uphill is awkward; be aggressive and you've got a short iron into a relatively flat green tucked between the dunes with deep bunkers front right and back left. MyGolfSpy said it reminded them of playing golf in Ireland. That's exactly it. It's the hole that feels least like it was built and most like it was found, and it does everything the 16th does without needing the ocean to help.