Why are there white dots on the Chambers Bay greens?

If you pay close attention to the ground at Chambers Bay, you'll see a bunch of paint. A bunch of white paint. Why? It's by design. The USGA has indicated the green complexes with dotted white paint.

There are two reasons why:

1. Many of the Rules of Golf are enforced differently on the green versus off the green, so knowing if your ball is on the green -- regardless of whether you can use the putter or not -- is key.

2. As Jason Day said Monday, it's the USGA's way of telling players that pay attention where not to put their ball.

"They've put most of them on slopes to where the ball probably won't stop or won't roll down or will roll away," he said. "If you look, you can't really see where the green is. If you're hitting into a flag, it looks like the green is all the way down the fairway."

So, consider the paint a line of demarcation.