At Sahalee Nation Membership, the bushes can loom.
Ezra Shaw / Getty Photos
SAMMAMISH, Wash. — There’s one thing meditative in regards to the grounds at Sahalee Nation Membership, host of this week’s KPMG Ladies’s PGA Championship. There’s one thing religious in regards to the setting. It’s the bushes, it’s the shadows, it’s the calm.
“It’s simply fairly completely different from something we play,” World No. 1 Nelly Korda mentioned. “It’s only a lovely stroll.”
“It’s nearly like an oasis of its personal right here,” added Lydia Ko. “I’ve loved it. It’s been actually peaceable.”
“It’s lovely. The bushes are simply so spectacular. It’s kinda of magical,” mentioned membership professional Stephanie Connelly-Eiswerth, equally wowed.
In her follow rounds, Brooke Henderson she didn’t even really feel like she was on a golf course.
“You simply really feel such as you’re in amongst nature. It’s only a nice feeling,” she mentioned. “I like simply sort of wanting round and respiration deep and feeling that contemporary air. It’s an unimaginable feeling.”
Research have demonstrated the advantages of being in nature. Decreased stress. Lowered blood stress. Improved bodily and psychological well-being. Primarily based on their descriptions, that checks out.
That’s, till the golf begins.
“I heard it’s referred to as ‘Sa-Hallway’ down right here,” Ko mentioned.
“It’s sort of like hitting on a bowling alley,” Connelly-Eiswerth added.
Like bowling, baseball or organized labor, golf is a recreation of strikes. However when golf followers consider Seattle-area golf they generally consider Chambers Bay, the mega-links some hour south of downtown that hosted the 2015 U.S. Open and the 2022 U.S. Novice, amongst others. You’ll be able to see your complete wide-open expanse of a course from the clubhouse. You’ll be able to see most holes from most different holes. There’s very actually one tree on the property — and it’s not even in play.
This week’s check is a bit completely different.
Sahalee isn’t any stranger to big-time event golf; the course hosted the 1998 PGA Championship and the 2010 U.S. Senior Open and the 2016 KPMG Ladies’s PGA Championship plus prime newbie occasions in between. However to get there you allow Seattle and drive 15 miles east into the center of the forest. Sasquatch is actually sewn onto Korda’s golf bag this week. They’ve undergone some tree-trimming lately, decreasing the estimated tree depend on property to … 7500. They loom over each fairway and each inexperienced. That’s the place the descriptors come from. Sa-Hallway. Sa-Alley. There’s a lot of speak of chutes and corridors and grocery-store aisles.
“I believe I used to be a bit nervous coming into this week as a result of I knew it was slim,” mentioned Madelene Sagstrom.
A number of of the sport’s prime stars performed their approach to the highest of the first-round leaderboard on Thursday. Celine Boutier, Charley Hull and Leona Maguire shot 2-under 70. Nelly Korda and Patty Tavatanakit shot 3-under 69. And Lexi Thompson shot 4-under 68. Different stars confirmed out, too: Cedar, fir, hemlock, maple. It’s not simply the variety of bushes however their dimension; they’re 150 ft tall or extra and loom over fairways. You’ll be able to catch an excellent lie within the tough however get stymied. Hell, you possibly can hit the fairway and get stymied.
Therefore the bowling metaphors.
“This course has its tooth for certain,” Tavatanakit mentioned. “A few drives I hit actually good as we speak and I ended up getting blocked by the bushes.”
In a contemporary golf world the place tree-chopping is in vogue and wide-open vistas all the trend, there’s one thing fantastic a couple of main championship heading to a setting that’s so clearly the other. Sahalee is the Pacific Northwest. It’s set in the identical sort of forest that’s residence to Bigfoot, to the werewolves from Twilight, to the escape of D.B. Cooper. Thriller hangs within the air, damaged solely by the thwack of ball on tree.
What’s the hardest tee shot at Sahalee?
“I believe they’re all tremendous, tremendous robust,” Korda mentioned. “Y’know, No. 1, the tee shot, that’s going to be your first tee shot of the day and that’s a very laborious gap.”
She began ticking by way of the remainder of the difficult tee photographs and finally stopped; there have been too many.
“Majority of the spherical I might be hitting driver simply since you don’t need a longer membership into these greens,” she mentioned. “That is the kind of golf course the place you simply acquired to sack up and hit your driver.”
That’s the robust factor about this main championship setup; you possibly can’t precisely simply lay again and play it secure. Yuka Saso, who gained the U.S. Ladies’s Open a couple of weeks in the past, outlined the problem.
“I’ll most likely hit drivers a lot of the holes, until they transfer the tee up or the wind adjustments or something like that,” she mentioned. “Hitting driver clearly the goal will get narrower. However I believe I’ve to hit driver; KPMG is one the championships that may be very lengthy. I don’t need to have like 5-iron or hybrid [for my] second shot.”
She summed it up like this:
“This golf course it’s very slim, so you need to be aggressive but additionally conservative. It’s important to hit it straight but additionally lengthy.”
Ah, that’s all.
There are some intriguing wrinkles the bushes present. Within the morning the course stays shaded, the bottom stays dewy, the temperatures keep cooler, the greens keep extra receptive.
“I really feel like within the morning you possibly can undoubtedly be somewhat bit extra aggressive with a majority of the pins being within the shade and somewhat softer,” Korda mentioned. “However as soon as the greens begin to see somewhat bit extra daylight they begin agency up a bit extra and you need to play somewhat bit extra defensive.”
On the planet the place Sahalee’s a bowling alley, the bushes generally function bumpers. Thompson was amongst these to ricochet a tee shot off a fairway-adjacent tree trunk solely to see it bounce again into play.
“Ended up getting some fairly respectable photographs out of the tough and gave myself some birdie alternatives,” she mentioned.
Different instances the bushes can function gutters, swallowing up wayward photographs. Thompson referred to as it a “first-shot” golf course. Stats guru Justin Ray reported that the early wave shot 74.65 photographs whereas the later wave shot 75.71. Each par-3 and par-4 averaged over par.
“General I believe the entire golf course is demanding,” Korda mentioned. “By the tip of the week we’re going to be actually drained. You’re going to need to put a variety of the thought into all of your photographs.”
From speaking to gamers and caddies it’s clear the bushes can loom so giant they’ll intrude into your ideas…
…until you’re Charley Hull. The British star quickly misplaced her golf golf equipment en path to Sahalee, delaying her pre-tournament prep — however she scouted the course Wednesday and cruised to 70 on Thursday, shrugging on the problem.
“No, I’m fairly tight on my targets anyway, often each week. This golf course looks like residence to me,” she mentioned. “The Duchess at Woburn [her home course in England] is precisely like this. Even tighter. So it doesn’t actually faze me an excessive amount of.
“I really feel fairly comfy. I like tree-lined golf course. The tighter it’s, often the higher I play.”
That’s the spirit. Fortune favors the daring, in golf and bowling. Goal for the headpin. Then see what’s left to your second ball.
Dylan Dethier welcomes your feedback at dylan_dethier@golf.com.
