At the fore of local sports history

Good morning, aspiring U.S. Amateur champion golfers, and welcome to Pierce County, WA.

A couple of things to consider as you make yourself comfortable: That snow-capped tribute to Mother Nature, periodically appearing in the southeast, is Pierce County’s own Mount Rainier, a real, active volcano that, fortunately, is not real active. If you hear what sounds to be an explosion, followed 30 seconds later by another explosion, it probably isn’t a volcano – the mountain has been dormant for the past 150 years or so – but, rather, a minor little incident involving F-15 fighter jets and a potential breaching of presidential air space.

In any case, don’t bother calling 911.

Also, the precise location of Chambers Bay, where 64 qualifiers from the medal rounds will turn to match play Wednesday, is in University Place, home of several thousand roundabout intersections but not a single university. Why it’s called University Place is a long story involving a reciprocated land transaction during the 19th century, but I suspect everybody would agree that University Place is a more appealing name for a town than Roundabout Intersection Place.

Because golfers are nothing if not sportsmen, you should know that your visit this week is a milestone in the history of Pierce County sports. The greater Tacoma area has produced Olympic medalists, hall of famers representing every recreation from bowling to Alpine skiing, and several national high school and collegiate champions. But when it comes to holding events of national significance, Seattle usually has had first dibs – and all the dibs thereafter.

Until Chambers Bay was awarded the 2010 U.S. Amateur and its 2-ton sibling, the 2015 U.S. Open, Pierce County’s most “memorable” sports spectacle might’ve been a little-remembered 1941 football game between 19th-ranked Washington State and No. 2 Texas A&M, the Southwest Conference champions bound for the Cotton Bowl. Before a crowd of 26,000 at the Stadium Bowl, Texas A&M prevailed, 7-0.

By the time the Aggies returned to College Station, the big intersectional victory in their regular-season finale had been reduced to trivial: Pearl Harbor was attacked the following morning.

Thanks to the Tacoma Dome, Pierce County scored the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in 1987, the hockey and gymnastics competitions for the Goodwill Games in 1990, and the 1987 Major Indoor Soccer League championship between the Dallas Sidekicks and the Tacoma Stars. Dallas won in overtime, 4-3, but the more notable total from that title match was 21,728 – a record attendance for an indoor soccer game.

Thanks, too, to the “Woodshed” for its one full season of service as a home away from home for the 1994-95 SuperSonics. While the Seattle Center Coliseum was undergoing the renovation that became KeyArena, Tacoma loomed as a reasonable destination for the NBA Finals. But the Sonics, 57-25 during the regular season, were first-round upset victims of the Lakers.

Now that the Goodwill Games have gone the way of the Ford Pinto, the MISL is as yesterday as New Coke, and Sonic refers to either a fast-food restaurant or the boom created by an F-15, the focus of Pierce County’s sports community turns toward today, when Chambers Bay is put through its first test on the national stage.

Television views figure to range from the merely spectacular array of knolls, dunes, nearby islands and mountains in the distance to the unprecedented eyeful of Stonehenge-like relics from Chambers Bay’s industrial past. And what a past.

The site has gone through more incarnations than Shirley MacLaine.

It’s been used as a paper mill, a lumber operation, a railroad center, a county gravel mine, a bus barn and a regional wastewater treatment plant. Now it’s 928 acres of sheer Scotland.

Chambers Bay’s evolution from blue collar to required collar – from lumber wagons and ore jennies to no carts allowed – has created a links-style layout that’s both practical and pristine.

The innovative amalgamation is not without some potential for confusion.

When a contestant refers to “that eagle on 18,” for instance, it either can mean a score of 3 on the 600-yard, par-5 finishing hole, or, well, an actual eagle.

As for the amenities befitting a world-class course, I would hope our visitors understand that Chambers Bay remains a work in progress. The clubhouse, while functional for a public course, is temporary. A more lavish facility is planned, part of a project that could include a hotel and retail shops. Proposals are in the blueprint phase, or maybe the phase just before the blueprints.

But hey, Scotland wasn’t built in a day.

A final thought, golfers: When you’re told that Chambers Bay is looking at this week as a “dress rehearsal” for the 2015 U.S. Open, please don’t take it as a slight. Although serving as host for the Open will be, as former Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg has put it, “like having the Super Bowl four days in a row,” the U.S. Amateur still ranks as the No. 1 sports event we’ve ever had around here.

Good luck. May you experience eagles of any persuasion, and please come back to enjoy the splendid new clubhouse. I’m not sure what the building will look like, but I get the sense it’ll be the ultimate destination on a road of roundabouts.

john.mcgrath@thenewstribune.com