If you’ve never actually been to Chambers Bay, the Robert Trent Jones II design in University Place, Washington (near Tacoma), it’s easy to assume that it must be overhyped. It’s hard to imagine that a course that had been open for less than a year was really worthy of being awarded the 2015 U.S. Open. Now, Golf Magazine debuted Chambers at No. 8 on its list of the Top 100 Courses You Can Play - and well if you haven’t been there, you’ll probably assume that’s ridiculous too.

Only, if you have seen Chambers Bay, you know that No. 8 actually might be a little low.

This is a course that grabs you before you even start walking its open fairways with a caddie (the only way to play it). The clubhouse sits on top of a hill that looks down on this rugged, natural-looking course that rolls toward the striking blue water of Pudget Sound. On one of my visits to Chambers Bay, I came across four Olympic Club members who all said they liked Chambers Bay even more than Bandon Dunes’ courses, including Pacific Dunes, which took No. 1 in those Top 100 rankings.

Now, WorldGolf.com’s resident Bandon Dunes honk Brandon Tucker may disagree. But these were four guys used to traveling all over the world and spending big money on golf.

Whether it’s better than Pacific Dunes or not, Chambers Bay is a course worthy of making a specific trip just to play it.

Of course, this means you’ll be in the greater Seattle area, a place that’s doing something to shoppers that’s as bad as Chambers Bay is good. Seattle’s taken it upon itself to start a plastic bag tax in 2009. Every time you get a plastic bag at any grocery, drug or convenience store you’ll be charged 20 cents. In tax.

In all the needless fawning laws and moves made in the Green Movement marketing craze, this may be the worst. The supposed idea behind the real idea (more money coming out of your pocket for the government to waste) is that people will start toting around those reusable canvas bags you can buy at places like Whole Foods and less plastic bags will be polluting the earth. The problem with this is it’s another blow to personal freedom (let’s tell people how they have to shop) and it hurts tourists more than anyone. Are you really going to bring your lame cloth bag on vacation?

Seattle fancies itself as some great green city when the truth is it’s one of the grimiest cities in the U.S. with more bums per capita downtown than any place in America outside of the Santa Monica Pier. And people who are trying to reduce emissions by biking to work in Seattle cannot stop complaining about how few paths they get and how poorly they’re treated.

Seattle should steam clean a street or two downtown at least once every decade before it tries to impose silly fees on visitors and its residents (63 percent of whom oppose this new plastic bag tax in polls). This city should be thankful it finally has a showcase course in its area with Chambers Bay - and butt out with the needless, offensive laws that pander to nut jobs who think they’re saving the planet.

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