From maintenance in Manchester to a U.S. Open

He was a kid growing up in Manchester, and at Sunday church services he would sometimes irk his mother because he would be drawing golf holes on the back of church programs instead of paying attention to the minister.

But Bruce Charlton's mom didn't have a directionless daydreamer on her hands. Rather, the boy simply had a passion for golf course design.

Flash decades ahead. Charlton oversaw the construction and design of the Chambers Bay Golf Course that will be seen by a global television audience this week when it hosts the United States Open.

It's the crowning achievement for a man who has spent 34 years with the world-renowned Robert Trent Jones II golf course architects firm in Palo Alto, Calif. Charlton is RTJ II's president/chief design officer. He has directed the design of courses on six continents. But this week is something special.

'It's the first time since 1970 that a relatively newly designed, newly constructed golf course has hosted the U.S. Open,” Charlton said.

Chambers Bay sits on the shore of Puget Sound, near Tacoma, Wash. It was built on a former sand and gravel mine. The project began in 2003. Eight months after the public course opened in 2007, the United States Golf Association awarded it the 2010 U.S. Amateur and 2015 U.S. Open.

'When we found out we were getting the Open,” Charlton said, 'it was like winning the Oscar for best motion picture.”

It's a showcase for someone who is doing what he has always wanted to do.

'I grew up in Manchester and worked at the golf course as a kid on the maintenance staff,” Charlton said. 'I remember being on the course on a hot day when I was 6 or 7 years old and wondering ‘Who decided to put that there?' Somebody had to think this stuff up.”

He spent countless hours involved with golf, either via work or play. He was a member of a state-tournament golf team at West Delaware High School. He told his teammates he would one day be a golf course architect. They scoffed. Now they hold yearly reunions at courses he designed.

The profession of choice for the Charlton men over four generations had been law, but Bruce's career goal spun him away from that. He attended the University of Arizona, where he earned a degree in landscape architecture. He went to work for RTJ II out of college in 1981.

Now comes this week at Chambers Bay, where players, media and a worldwide audience will judge whether Charlton designed a course and facility worthy of a U.S. Open.

'I was very encouraged recently,” he said, 'when Phil Mickelson came out and said the first time you play there you don't get it, but the more you play it the more enjoyable it becomes.”

As for this being the 57-year-old Charlton's crowning achievement, he would attach a 'so far” to it.

'I've got a lot of good left in me,” he said.