It’s not easy to get from the DC area to the Pacific Northwest – transcontinental flight, and gaining and losing 3 hours takes a toll. So, when we decided to spend a couple of weeks in Colorado this summer, it just made sense to plan on a quick overnight trip from Denver to Seattle. I could knock off two major courses in the area, and we could reconnect with some dear college friends who recently moved there.
The trip started off as good as could be expected. We got up early for our 90-minute drive to the Denver international Airport and arrived there in plenty of time to check the golf bag and make the gate without any stress. The flight was on time, and I spent the flight daydreaming of putting for eagle on 18 at Chambers Bay, just like Jordan Speith did when he won the 2015 US Open.
Things quickly took a turn for the worse when we got to baggage claim, and I noticed that my AirTag was still at the Denver airport. A quick conversation with the Southwest baggage claim attendant confirmed my fears – my golf bag was one of the bags that had been removed in order to “balance the load”. You have got to be kidding me! A golf trip without golf clubs – UGH!
She assured me that the bag would be on the next flight, which was going to land at 1:30, exactly 6 minutes before my tee time. Oh well, a rental set wouldn’t be the end of the world so off I went.
Chambers Bay Golf Club must be one of the most unique golf courses I’ve ever played. From the clubhouse high above the course, you can see every hole. There is one lone tree on the course and it’s all the way across the property. You gain about 700 feet from the holes on Pugent Sound to the holes at the high end of the property and the course routing has you going up or down at least 3 times during your round. Needless to say, it’s no walk in the park(land).
I joined up with three singles, and we had a fun time together. Two were locals who played Chambers Bay frequently, which definitely helped with course management. The fourth was a schoolteacher from Montana who spent his summers working at a golf pro shop in the Big Sky state. It was a crystal clear and hot day, so the course had plenty of cold water igloos across the terrain.
What I remember the most about the course was the size of the greens. Some greens seemed to go on forever. I played much better on the back nine as I think I started to get used to the nice set of TaylorMade irons and woods. I probably also was encouraged when I checked on my AirTag and saw that it was in the Seattle-Tacoma Airport.
Since we started on the back nine, I wrapped up the round with a sweet hybrid to the 9th green and an uneventful two putt for par. I hustled back to the rental car to go back to the airport to get my clubs and join our friends for dinner near the University of Washington campus.
Little did I know the adventure would deviate from the script at that point…
MajorBucketList.com 