If Lytham challenged, why not Merion??

[JamieS]

Rich,
Thanks for your thoughts...
The fairways at Olympic are sloped much more severely than any found at Merion. The professional from my club played in the last Open at Olympic and he said that on many fairways even a drive to the correct area, due to the slope and tight cut of the fairways, would end up just in the edge of the fairway or in the first cut of rough.

As for Merion, at this point another Open may be just a dream, and if it became reality, it would have to be done "just" right. We'll see...and hope.

Also...thanks for the advice a couple of weeks ago on my golf plans for Scotland, we are getting close to finalizing our plans.

[ForkaB]

Jamie

Keep in touch re: your Scotland trip, as you wish, to my e-mail address below. I'll probably be living over there again at that time, so maybe we can get together for a game or a blether.

Cheers

Rich

[Tim_Weiman]

To Mike Cirba et al:

I can't help but compliment you all on a great thread.

It is a treat to see a thread with such tone, depth and interest.

This must be exactly what Ran has in mind for his treehouse.

Thanks very much.

[Paul Richards]

In my humble opinion, Merion could make a
great US Open course.  Lytham, unlike
Carnoustie, produced a very worthy champion,
as its 197 bunkers kept the driver out of
many players' hands, Merion could prove to
have similar defenses.

Remember, Duval was only -10 on a course that
was par 71. Either of the back-to-back par
5's on the front could have played as a four
pars, making Duval -6.  Is that so bad?

[Jay]

Did anyone see Jim McKay at last weeks OPEN?
I haven't found him on the tape yet and I'm worried.  Is he completely retired?

[Mike_Cirba]

Tim,

Thanks for the kind words.  Glad you're enjoying the thread.  

I agree that it's certainly provided an in-depth, multi-level discussion that is a joy to participate in with such intelligent posters, whether they are correct or grossly mistaken.  

[Steve Wilson]

A great moment from the Open on Sunday for me was when Clarke left his approach just short of the green on one of the closing holes.  The pin was tucked close right and he wasn't able to go agressively for the hole with his first putt because an overborrow would have had him putting into the bunker near the hole.

I think he left himself about five feet for par which he made, but the proximity of the hole and the bunker made a more agressive play foolhardy.

Anyone else recall this?  

[Paul Richards]

Steve:

I do recall the Clarke incident you referred
to.  Isn't it great how, on a links course,
you have to worry about bunkers (and play
the wind) while putting?

[Gib_Papazian]

Maybe we ought to look at this from the opposite angle.

Why is storied Merion clamoring for the Open?

If the USGA is concerned about losing revenue by holding the championship at Merion, then so be it. No loss for the men and women who fire at wicker baskets. Their place in history is assured.  

On closer examination, the entire argument that Merion no longer requires a full arsenal of shots by the professionals is specious at best - WF West is a series of drivers and long iron approaches - hardly a balanced test itself.

Maybe, long monotonous courses like Medinah and Baltusrol make for a difficult test, but a steady diet of blase architecture will eventually kill much of the magic of the event.

Don't think so? How much excitement does the PGA generate anymore? First, match play went out the window, and now the venues are no better than the average tour event.

Merion brings magic - just like TOC.    

Now, given that the Open can be a lucrative financial shot in the arm, I can understand Merion trying to land the Open - but for no other reason than that.

The U.S. Open is an enormous and overblown circus, where half the gallery are booze soaked corporate guests who spend most of the tournament in oppulent tents inhaling rich food - all without without the slightest idea what they are looking at out on the golf course.

Like Merion needs that?

And please don't raise that argument about the Open somehow bringing credibility and prestige to a club.

After the wildly exciting 1987 Open, Olympic dropped in the GD rankings from #10 to #17.
Two years later it bounced back to #11.

It is written above that Merion might have to be "tricked up" to challenge the professionals. EVERY GOLF COURSE GETS TRICKED UP TO SOME EXTENT FOR THE OPEN. Olympic bears no resemblance during the  Open to the course we play every day. None. Zero.

The USGA setup marginalizes the architecture of a golf course, not enhances it. Merion is about great architecture. What a bunch of golfing cyborgs shoot at Merion ought to have no bearing on the discussion. The discussion ought to be about the desirability of variety.

If the set-up looks the same every year, the same type of golfer will win every year. No need to rehash the Simpson, Andy North, Hale Irwin, Retief Goosen  plodder argument. The Open hardly produces swashbuckling bravado.

Pinehurst clearly was a refeshing change of pace which brought newfound variety to an event that frankly, had become boring to me. No opportunity for artistry makes for repetition.

Merion, properly presented, cannot be  negotiated without a measure of artisitic imagination. Maybe the USGA is not willing to let her true genius shine through.

Maybe Merion no longer looks good cloaked in the monochromatic costume the USGA forces on its venues.

Now, if money is not at the heart of the issue on Merion's part, then perhaps they ought to be happy with events like the U.S. Amateur.

Elegant, crisp, well organized and historic, the Amateur is probably a more appropriate tournament - and philosophical match - for Merion than the Open.

Why allow thousands of corporate guests on their hallowed grounds when instead they can welcome in knowlegable purists who love and understand the game.

To me, the Amateur has so much more class and dignity than the Open - the choice ought to be clear.

[Mike_Cirba]

Gib;

Bravo!

[Gib_Papazian]

Mike,
I might add that if I was King at Olympic, the same guiding principle would apply.

It has never seemed right to me that the oldest amateur athletic club in the western United States (dating to 1860) would place more value on hosting a bunch of professionals than the nation's best amateur golfers.

Maybe that is why I will never be King.

[BillV]

Jay

Jim McKay appeared from his farm with a purported tear in his eye on Sunday's broadcast. Eagerly awaiting the broadcast as we.

On pre-recorded tape.  Where he belongs.  Probably the least knowledgeable anchor in the history of The Open Championship.

As for Lythm and St Anne's, fairways with very well placed (Everywhere?), effectively very broad bunkers (Due to the firmness of the fairways) seemed to do the trick. Obviously the greenside ones also performed similarly. Muirfield, next year's venue for The Open Championship should present similar test.  See you there.

I felt that the difficulty of the bunkers determined the play and that it was good.  A nice impartiality of the bunkers, not really caring who they foibled.  

A wonderful presentation of links golf at its quirkiness.

Not having played at all in England, only Scotland, I must say that each time I have watched an Open at Lytham, I have had as strong desire to play it as much as any Open course.  The uncertainty of links golf is what is obviously totally devoid from most of the modern American courses.  It was still surprising to me how accepting the players were as compared to Carnoustie two years ago.

[TEPaul]

Gib:

You make a lot of good points there about why a course like Merion should probably only be thinking of hosting a U.S Amateur and not a U.S. Open.

It seems that your primary point though is that a course and club like Merion really doesn't need the hassle or noteriety of an Open because they've hosted the tournament a number of times before and they have nothing more to prove in that vein.

I agree the U.S. Amateur would seem better for Merion since it's definitely more low key than the Open and the course probably suits match play better than medal these days. A Walker Cup would also be a great fit for Merion.

I agree that the whole space, infrastructure, corporate tent thing is a problem with Merion and would require that the USGA rearrange things that way. It was mentioned on here about a year ago that the USGA probably would not have to take a revenue cut in the end if they rearranged and marketed the tournament at Merion to have an increase in TV revenue cover the lose in corporate tent and gate. It seems to me a clever use and marketing of Tiger Woods vs Bobby Jones might just generate additional TV ad revenue and probably net the whole thing out about the same for the USGA in income!

The question of a future Open for Merion really isn't that simple though. Much of it has to do with the perception of the strength and character of the golf course and its ability to test the best in this day and age and in the future.

If it wasn't for that question and the rankling perception that the course is now obsolete, I don't believe there would be much interest in the club to ever offer the course for an Open again.

But that rankling perception is there and it's not going to go away. The USGA isn't doing anything to make that perception go away either and I'm not sure that they really should except how it might relate to another issue that they are having a hard time dealing with--and that is the increased distances the ball is traveling today.

It's curious to me how the USGA seems to be on both sides of that quesiton and problem. On the one hand, they are implying that Merion is probably obsolete because Meeks has stated that a cursory analysis of the golf course shows that the Pros would hit approximatedly 12 wedges into Merion greens and that is not the test the USGA is looking for with an Open.

If they connect the issue of Merion's obsolesence and the distance the ball is going today at all (and I'm not sure that they really do-or do effectively anyway) then one wonders what they are trying to say. Are they implying that Merion is obsolete and therefore the distances the ball travels should be rolled back-and until it is they can't return to Merion? Or is their rationale in apparently taking Merion out of the Open rota simply a veiled admission that they can't seem to handle the distance issue and they really don't want the problem brought to light and exacerbated by having par at Merion hammered bigtime by today's touring pros?

Because of that rankling perception of obsolesence, if a future Open was offered to Merion I believe the club would take it despite the hassle. I believe there is probably enough support in the club for an Open because that support really does have something to prove!

As for the USGA, as usual there are probably all kind of elements within that organization that are all over the map on all these issues!

Just look for a minute how a strong and consistent USGA party line on the distance issue could make an excellent point either way. The USGA could say that they can't go back to Merion unless the manufacturers and the public help them get a grip on this distance issue and force the issue that way. Or they could just take the Open back to Merion and watch it get hammered and then say to the manufacturers and the public--look at what's happened here--now help us get a grip on this issue so we don't have to take the likes of Merion out of the Open rota! Maybe the USGA doesn't really care at all about the distance issue and how it relates to Merion but if they do they should connect the distance issue vis-a-vis Merion. At present they seem either confused, weak or scared about the distance issue as it relates to Merion.

Gib, you are so right that an Open set-up at Olympic or Pinehurst or Baltusrol or Merion plays nothing like those courses do for normal member play. I'm not sure that many people really understand that or the extent of it or the nuances! A Merion member who normally shoots 80 at Merion would probably struggle to break 100 at Merion with an Open set-up.

Personally, I think Merion, the golf course has got the stuff to test the best in this day and age. And I'm not really disagreeing with JamieS and his insightful analysis of Merion when I say that. And I'm not really disagreeing with Meeks's analysis either.

I think there is a way to set Merion up basically just using what the course has architecturally but with a clever set-up that is basically what the course is with some additional tweaks to really highlight specific defenses of the golf course. And I don't think in doing that the course would be considered "tricked up" or that any of it's features would need to be "over the top" (like the greens and their speeds). But it would be very much an Open set up cleverly tailored to what Merion is all about architecturally!

This has gotten long but in a little while I'm going to go through the holes of Merion and say how I think each and every one needs to be set-up to test the best. No redesign or anything, just a really clever set-up truly analyzing what Merion's got and where! And if this were done, where the pros would struggle and where they would probably shine and why. It will probably show how dumb I am!

It is of some interest, I think, to try to analyze the strength of a golf course by comparing the games of good amateurs or even mid-amateurs to touring pros. I think it can be a little misleading though when comparing them and how an Open set-up can be done to off set the differences in their games.

There are plenty of amateurs and even mid-ams around who actually have the abiltity to strike the ball as well and as long as most touring pros--they just don't do it as frequently and consistently! There is quite a difference, I believe, in the ability of a touring pro to manage his game and to save strokes. On and around the greens they are far sharper than the good amateur too. If you watch a really good amateur on the range hitting balls next to a normal touring pro you probably wouldn't see much difference but take them out to the course (and with an Open set-up) and the management skills and the sharpness of the touring pro would become quite evident compared to the good am or club pro! It's really hard to say how this would translate to score on a course like Merion but it could be as much as 5-7 shots a round. Judging from the recent Hugh Wilson tournament this might put a touring pro in contention into or near the realm of reasonableness, even for the USGA!

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul, Gib, et. al.,

Did Prestwick fall out of the British Open Rota because of the Corporate tent issue, or did the world's best players make it obsolete, or non-competitive.

I love Merion, Maidstone, NGLA, GCGC, etc., etc..  But, the best players in the world are so good, that these courses just might get overpowered, resulting in a lackluster tournament where par was meaningless.

Perhaps the tide will turn and penal gold will be in vogue again ?

[ForkaB]

Patrick

My memory tells me that Prestwick was dropped from the Open rota becuase of crowd control issues, particularly over the closing stretch of holes which are all jumbled together.  There were (thank god) no "hospitality" tents in 1925 when the Open was last there.  BTW, does anyone know who started this infernal idea of selling out the souls of the great championshoips to corporate interests?  But, I digress....

The winning score in 1925 was 300, and after seeing how dismally some of the better players in the world (including some of ours) scored in this year's Amateur at Prestwick, I do not think that the issue of difficulty has anything to do with why the R&A won't go back to the course, any more than it does with the Merion situation.

As Deep Throat first said:  "Follow the Money!"

[TEPaul]

Pat:

Don't know anything about Prestwick--never seen it--and you would have a feel for what the tour pros would do at GCGC a lot better than me, but I think Merion could hold it's own if the course was set-up correctly! And that does not necessarily mean really high rough and 28yd wide fairway corridors that they used in 1981.

I think that NGLA could also be a decent test for them if the course was at par 70 and setup in really good tournament condition. Holes #5, #7 and #18 would be excellent long par 4s for the touring pros and they would likely (as a field) play #7 # #18 over par as par 4s. I think #5 would probably play about on the number (par 4) for them. You can imagine just where they could attack and score but if the course was really fast "through the green" and the greens were really fast but not unfair or over the top I think they would be fairly well tested. The course and it's tournament condition would have to show all it's teeth and if it did I would assume the winning score would be about -15(+or-). Olsen may have to use some of the max pin positions but what the hell that's what they're there for. If a tour pro got through 72 holes at NGLA in super tournament condition with really tough pins without 3 putting a few times--then he really is good and deserves to probably shoot -20(+or-), but somewhere along the line some of those greens within greens are bound to get him!

Maidstone at par 70 (#16 & #17--par 4s) would probably get the crap pummeled out of it--unless Hook could somehow arrange for four solid days of 20MPH wind. But if not forgetaboutit!

But I think Merion could do it still--unless it really rained and then they would kill it too! Face it, if the conditions are soft, those guys can kill almost any course today, no matter how long it is!

I guess the name of the game these days really sort of boils back down to how the ball bounces or not! That's a little bit of what we saw proof of at Lytham!

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

Could you define, "set up correctly" in the context of Merion hosting the OPEN ?

[TEPaul]

Pat:

Definitely I will! And as stated above show how dumb I am! But no, I will and I'll even do it hole by hole with a brief analysis of how each hole will actually affect the touring pros and why. I'm not all that familiar with their games or their mindset but last year I was lucky to be asked by Gil Hanse to go play Merion with Faldo and I figured what the hell, this is a one time thing so I will bend his ear. He is a shy man but very nice and very responsive too and he responded with a ton of opinions; whole course, hole by hole and other things so I do have an idea about the way the pros  think and would approach a course like Merion with a set-up that would test them. I also trust Faldo's opinions very much (it was extra interesting to hear his opinions since he had never been there before).

And don't let me hear someone say he isn't on top of his game anymore and he doesn't know what he's talking about. He knows what he's talking about and don't forget he is also a player who has won an unusual amount of Majors!

[Scott_Burroughs]

You probably already know this, Tom, but others may not.  Faldo was interested in playing Merion because he noticed that Merion was the only course in the top 10 of the World Top 50 (or 100, I forget) Must Play Courses from Links Magazine, where he contributes a monthly column.  His columns, by the way, are quite interesting and insightful for a guy who has that unfair "borderline-too-serious demeanor" label while on the golf course, which people often misunderstand as being boring or impersonable.  It might have been the same column where he described the joy of his first experience at Sand Hills.

[TEPaul]

Scott:

I did not know that Faldo came to Merion to complete his playing of the top ten. He was also there because he was in town to see Inniscrone with Gil Hanse since they are planning to do a course together in Conn.

For whatever reason he came, I was impressed with his take on Merion and the things he observed. He was very careful to listen to Gil and not act as if he, as a touring pro,  knew everything there was to know. Far from it, in fact, and I was very impressed that he did not have only a touring pro's or good player's view of what the golf course was.

Faldo is very much into mechanics and analysis of the swing and such but interestingly not really his own but every single other person in view. He noticed everybody and commented on them. He had an ongoing thing the entire day and particularly at lunch where he would quickly analyze somebody preparing for a shot or a practice swing or whatever and then he would predict how they would hit the ball before they played the shot. You can't believe how accurate he was in his predictions.

Anyway, this apparent fixation, in my opinon, made Faldo acutely aware of the limitations of any and all golfers and apparently what that meant and translates to in an architectural context. This is very valuable to Gil, I believe, but of course Faldo is definitely the man to also analyze things from the perspective of the Touring pro.

What he said about Merion in total card yardage was very perceptive and very true in my opinion.

In a distance context, Faldo flies the ball with his driver about 260yds--the course was soaking wet that day. He is not long by Tour standards and he did say, among other things, you can't believe how far many of these guys and certainly ones like Tiger hit the ball.

[GarySmith]

I was just cruising around in the course review section of this site, and was surprised to see Merion was not written up.

[Scott_Burroughs]

He did mention in his column the relationship with Gil and his invite to Merion and also their joint effort in Conn.  I think he also mentioned Inniscrone.

I've gained a new respect for Faldo through his columns and the Profiles of a Pro feature on him on The Golf Channel.

I'd be really impressed with him if he could tell, just by your swing, that you must have the longest and most thorough posts on GCA web sites. ;-)

[T_MacWood]

Why would any well preserved admirable golf design want to be chosen to host the US Open?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Tom MacWood,

Money doesn't talk, it screams !

An OPEN can do wonders to a clubs capital improvements and reserves, or in reducing dues.

[T_MacWood]

I nominate Timber Point, Ponte Vedra and Sharp Park for the next avaible slots of the US Open. Odds are good that any alterations to these courses will be a positive steps.