Source: The News Tribune (Tacoma, Wash.)
It's no Bandon Dunes, but at least it's not Bushwood.
On Tuesday, Pierce County announced the official name of its proposed high-end golf course in University Place: Chambers Bay.
Not Chambers Bay Links. Not Chambers Bay Golf Course. Just Chambers Bay.
It's a name fit for Chevy Chase's character in the movie "Caddyshack": Ty Webb, the Zen golfer of Bushwood Country Club.
"We think they're two good words," said Dick Ferguson, a county spokesman. "We think they're upscale words - a combination of words you could use in a clothing line. Together they convey the quality that will mark this particular golf course."
It's the official name given to a project proposed by County Executive John Ladenburg as a $ 20 million, 18-hole Scottish links-style course on the site of a former gravel mine with a view of Puget Sound.
It's the cornerstone of a plan aimed at rejuvenating the 930-acre Chambers Creek Properties to attract tourists and to soak up sewage sludge.
The county hopes to begin construction on the golf course this fall and open it for play in May 2007. The county plans to use revenue generated by the course to pay off the long-term debt it incurs when it sells bonds to finance the project.
Since Ladenburg presented his plan to the County Council in February 2004, the only real name the golf course ever had was modest: Chambers Creek Golf Course.
County officials, who have compared the project with the Bandon Dunes resort on the Oregon coast, felt it was time to give the project an official name that would stick and click with the national golf media.
"It's two years from being completed and a reality, and it's time to start having people know it by that name," Ferguson said. "The marketing efforts will start in the near future."
The name is the brainchild of a number of county officials and contractors, including Ladenburg, designer Robert Trent Jones II of Palo Alto, Calif., and the county's development consultant and eventual course operator, KemperSports Management of Northbrook, Ill.
"The name Chambers Bay takes advantage of our history and geography," Ladenburg said.
The history belongs to Thomas Chambers, who built the first sawmill on the creek in 1852. The geography refers to Chambers Bay, which is how the portion of Puget Sound at the outlet of Chambers Creek is recorded on some maps.
Officials kicked around other names before agreeing on Chambers Bay. The final list of names included one that gave off a "Lord of the Rings" vibe: The Olde Ruins Golf Links. Another name shared the title of a John Grisham novel: The Chamber. Yet another name seemed to suggest anything but playing golf: Miners Graveyard.
The County Council, which has final say over the final design and construction of the golf course, was not involved in the selection of the course's name.
Council Chairman Shawn Bunney, among five council members who voted last year to begin publicly funding the project, was less than ecstatic about Chambers Bay.
"Yeah, it doesn't bother me," he said.
Bunney said the council could rename the course if it wanted to, but probably won't.
"At the bottom line, this thing needs to work," Bunney said. "You can name it anything you want. The question is, has the work been done to generate the kind of results that John (Ladenburg) and his staff are opining that it will?"
