A round at Chambers is a wild journey, a 7,585-yard romp through dunes and waste areas, and up, over and down hills and bumps that were meticulously crafted to look as if swept by the wind. The fairways are wide—100 yards in spots—but there is seldom a flat lie anywhere, even on the tees, which are as freeform as the rest of the course.

The result is the antithesis of target golf. Featuring fescue grass and built on sand, the walking-only layout plays hard and fast. The tightly knit fairways encourage hitting the ball along the ground whenever possible, using the slopes to feed the ball to the hole. On nearly every hole, the best way to leave tap-in birdies is to hit approaches sometimes as much as 40 yards away from the target, even farther away in the wind.

“One element that intrigued us,” says Davis, who first visited the site during construction, “was that Chambers Bay will be much different than any other U.S. Open test. It will play much like a British Open course. The idea of a ‘bouncy’ Open greatly appeals to us.”

That much is clear from the opening hole, a 498-yard par 4 with a fairway that slopes from right to left, especially as it approaches the green. From 200 yards away, Jay Blasi hits a low draw that lands 20 yards short of the putting surface before rolling onto the green, stopping 10 feet left of the hole.

It is just the way the architects wanted the hole to play, which is not surprising considering Blasi is one of the designers, along with Jones and Bruce Charlton. Nobody knows every hump and bump of the course like the 30-year-old Blasi, who pulled many all-nighters at the office during the design phase and was on site for most of the construction.

Chambers Bay is Blasi’s first design—a golf introduction as impressive as Tiger Woods’ 1997 Masters win in his first major as a professional.

Woods may be one of the most imaginative players in golf, but even he will need some preparation to adjust to Chambers Bay’s holes like the 508-yard par-4 7th, which rises 45 feet from fairway to green.

The hole seems ridiculously difficult, but like a computer programmer, Blasi has built in a backdoor. Following a poor drive and lay-up, I have a shot of 65 yards to a semi-blind flagstick. Blasi suggests hitting an 80-yard shot 20 yards left of the hole. I hit the shot as requested, and the ball careens off a hill behind the green and ends up inches from the hole for a tap-in par.

Remember Tiger Woods’ 90-degree chip-in at the 16th hole during the final round of the 2005 Masters? That type of shot is possible with remarkable regularity at Chambers Bay.

Chambers Bay also will host the 2010 U.S. Amateur, and competitors at either championship would do well to hire Blasi as a caddie. But Blasi, a scratch handicap, has higher aspirations: He wants to become the first contestant since Walter Travis to compete in a U.S. Amateur on a course that he has designed.

Chambers Bay already has made history for its architects, for the USGA and for an entire region of the country. It doesn’t seem so unreasonable to expect yet another extraordinary feat at this remarkable layout.