Despite the traffic concerns of Sammamish residents, and a plea from Sammamish businesses to be more involved, it appears the plan to transport visitors to this summer’s nationally televised golf tournament in Sahalee directly from Marymoor Park will remain unchanged.

When the Sahalee course hosts the US Senior PGA tournament July 26 – Aug. 1, none of the estimated 140,000 visitors will be allowed to walk through the course gates. Due to the concerns of Sahalee residents that their neighborhood would turn into a parking lot, tournament organizers instead decided that every spectator, even those who live a few minutes walk from the course in Sammamish, would be required to be transported to the course via shuttle bus from Marymoor Park in Redmond.

This plan satisfied the residents of Sahalee, a number of whom are part of the tournament’s organizing committee.

But the Chamber of Commerce, realizing that while tens of thousands of people would visit Sammamish during each day of the tournament, none of them would get the chance to visit Sammamish businesses, felt left out in the cold.

Similarly, the Marymoor Park plan is frustrating at least two councilors, who saw that asking hundreds of Sammamish residents to drive to Redmond and back to visit a tournament they could easily walk to would put extra pressure on our already dysfunctional road system.

An estimated 30,000 spectators will attend the four championship rounds each day – 7 percent of which are from the two Sammamish zip codes.

Using these figures, 2,100 locals will each day have to drive to Redmond in the morning and back again in the evening, using the main arterials of 228th Avenue, Sahalee Way, State Route 202 and East Lake Sammamish Parkway.

At a City of Sammamish study session at city hall on Tuesday night, Councilmember Tom Odell was most concerned with the impact that would have on local traffic.

“That’s a big surge for roads that are already going to have some unusual traffic,” he said, referring to continued construction on East Lake Sammamish Parkway and Southeast 20th.

While Mayor Don Gerend said that reduced traffic volumes that typically occur in the summer would alleviate traffic pressure, Odell said he remembered the extraordinary backups that occurred on the parkway last July.

“And that was without a golf tournament,” he said. “The parkway was under construction then. The parkway is still under construction now.”

Councilmember Mark Cross lamented the lack of opportunity for visitors to be introduced to local businesses.

“The fact remains, we now have a golf tournament that is less convenient for Sammamish residents to go to than if it was in Redmond,” he said, adding that the next time such an event was held, it would be preferable if visitors to the city were “not hermetically sealed to and from the golf course.”

In an attempt to respond to local business, and traffic, concerns, the City of Sammamish was studying the possibility of a small number of shuttle buses to run from Eastlake High School to the tournament, or for the Marymoor Park shuttles to stop in Sammamish en route to the golf course.

However according to Championship General Chairman, Chris Falco, the tournament organizers had not budgeted for the estimated $40,000 a change to the shuttle plan would apparently cost, and that if the city had wanted a local connection point it should have made that clear during the planning stage.

“If it was only a couple of grand, we’d be looping it [through Sammamish], I guarantee it,” he said. “It’s not something we have a budget for, or plans for, because we came to the city with this early on.”

Falco also said local businesses were under the wrong impression if they thought many tournament spectator were likely to visit shops in Sammamish.

“From previous experience, they spend their money on the golf course, they spend a lot of time on the golf course, and then they get in their cars and they want to go home,” he said, adding it was only cities with a number of hotels that saw significant increases in business.

Issaquah Chamber of Commerce CEO Matt Bott told The Reporter recently he was excited about the opportunity the tournament represented for businesses in Issaquah. Hotels there are planning for surges in bookings.

“I buy the argument that the sales tax, while it would be nice to have, does not justify a shuttle,” Odell said. “But I am concerned with what life will be like up here during the tournament.”

Councilmember Michele Petitti was one of remaining councilors who felt pleased with the current transportation plan.

“I don’t support getting a shuttle up here – I have a lot of faith in your professional planning,” she told Falco.

Councilmember John James, whose role as city liaison for the tournament continues to be purely ceremonial, accepted the organizers’ claim that, for a tournament with prize money and sponsorship deals in the many millions of dollars, $40,000 was too much for a bus for locals.

“The reality is, we don’t have it in our budget, and it sounds like you don’t have it in yours,” James said.

Councilmember John Curley said he hoped the strain the tournament was putting on the city would be worth it.

“Do us a favor – seeing as though we’re going to have to take one in the pants for a few days, and sit in traffic, and our businesses aren’t going to get anything, make sure that when the commentators start talking they say “welcome to lovely Sammamish,” he said. “Not Redmond.”