THE COURSE
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s they were for the 1998 PGA Championship and 2010 U.S. Senior Open, Sahalee’s North and South nines will be used for the 2016 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship (the East nine is considered every bit as good as its neighbors). The course will officially measure 6,624 yards and play to a par of 71. Sahalee’s most distinguishable feature is, of course, its trees, which make each hole look considerably narrower than it really is. Tom Huesgen says the fairways will most likely play as they do for the members – between 35 and 45 yards wide. However, on virtually every tee (and in particular on No.s 1, 4, 6, 11 and 12), anyone in the field could be struck by a feeling of mild to severe claustrophobia and a need to steer the ball safely down the hole – never a recipe for a successful outcome. The rough, says Huesgen, won’t be excessive — between twoand-a-half and three-and-a-half inches tall — but Sahalee’s forests will do more than enough to protect par.
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JUNE 2016
Head professional Mike Montgomery, a graduate of the University of Washington and the former head pro at Bellingham Golf & County Club, likes to say that Sahalee is a “Point A to point B to point C” type of course. “You really need to hit your spots on two or three consecutive shots at every hole,” he adds. “I therefore think a disciplined, patient golfer will do well. “Sahalee doesn’t have any breather holes, especially if you start missing fairways,” Montgomery adds. “Even the best golfer can become tentative off the tee.” Huesgen expects green speeds to range from 11-and-a-half to 12 on the stimpmeter, depending on the day and weather conditions. Readers know June can be unpredictable in the Pacific Northwest, but if conditions and temperatures in Sammamish between June 9-12 correspond with those from the same dates last year (just three rainy days in the previous three weeks, and temps of 84, 80, 75 and 69 degrees), the course should firm up, effectively making those fairways even narrower, the greens faster, and par increasingly difficult to match.
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