Tiger And Phil Weigh In On Chambers Bay

/

Jason Sobel reports for ESPN.com on the Chambers Bay reviews from Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson.

Woods was pretty clear in his Memorial Tournament press gathering Wednesday: the difficulty, interest and challenge of Chambers Bay will be very setup dependent. He reported playing his practice rounds from the tips, meaning a 7,900 yard(!) course that we'll almost never see.

Sobel writes:

Davis recently allowed that Chambers Bay will feature holes which can be played as both par-4s and par-5s; he revealed there will be tee boxes with sidehill lies; and he suggested that competitors will need several practice rounds in order to fully prepare themselves for the week.

"When Mike says something like that, you've got to pay attention to it, because he's an extremely bright man," Woods said. "We got out there and it was like, oh, my God, there's so many different options here. You have to know. I don't take a long time in practice rounds, but we played in three and a half hours, just the front nine, had lunch, kind of sat down there and talked about it and played another three and a half on the back. So we spent a while."

Mickelson, meanwhile, was taking a diplomatic tone, sounding like he's enjoying the Open Championship vibe of the place. Sobel writes:

Mickelson doesn't expect Chambers Bay to reach extreme levels of play, as we've witnessed at other U.S. Open venues.

"I don't see it getting out of hand at all," he said. "I don't see the wind being as strong as a typical British Open. They won't be able to get the greens very fast, to where they're out of control. Certainly, there's a lot of contour, but around the hole where the pin placements are, they seem very fair. I really enjoyed it."

I thought the most interesting take came from Woods noting that he normally doesn't play practice rounds nearly as long as "we" (he and his entourage) played. That is almost certainly a compliment to the intricacy and options off the tee and around the greens.