Merion (photos)

[SPDB]

Mike - The scattershot approach works best because its hard to know where to begin addressing the criticism, very little of which is "valid."  

It's pointless to get into arguments with people who have never laid eyes on the course, or, if they have, only once or twice.

There is a paranoia on here, or a cult of criticism that breeds total fiction. Somebody says: "hey, the fairway lines are narrower,"  and everybody jumps in and says, "yeah, they are! what the hell is going on there."

All of this despite the fact that Merion's fairways are wider than they have been in 30+ yrs.(perhaps even more). Mike is quite right, that the fairway's have been extended to encompass fairway bunkering that was previously surrounded by rough.  It may be a tall order, I guess, to ask people to recall a course they've never laid eyes on, or have only seen sparingly.

Thus, on this particular thread, Mayday is spot-on (and it is really not unique to this thread): the attitude is shoot first, ask questions/research later.

[Mike_Cirba]

Sean;

I agree that taking the fairways back to pre-1981 widths is a GREAT thing and I hope we see more of it.  If Fazio has any part in that, he should be applauded.  I started a thread here a few years back applauding the tree removal plan at Merion.

I just would ask that you not take out the "surrounds" when you start "digging".  If only Macdonald and Faz had used that approach at Merion, there wouldn't be any collateral damage.  

[Jeff_Mingay]

Great job with the fairway mowing, Tommy. Really. The wavy, pinched look takes away from an otherwise great looking golf hole, doesn't it.

[SPDB]

Mike - Tree removal, fairway widening and certain in-house bunker construction were all part of recommendations made to the prior super...so to say that these are new movements hatched by the new super is wrong, but useful if you are looking for more fodder for tirades over supposed failings by Faz. Shaffer is a brilliant super who should be commended, but be careful heaping too much praise on him (again, unless you are criticizing Fazio, then, by all means, heap away).

[wsmorrison]

Chip,

Thank you for your comments.  I eagerly welcome your views and knowledge of golf in general and Merion in particular.  You are far more familiar with Merion than am I and I enjoy intellectual discussions with you.  Despite any differences we may have in opinion you are gentlemanly in your interactions with me as it should be and I hope as I've been.

I have a question for you, Chip, or others that have been around the course a lot longer than me (where are you, Willie Dow?).  Did skulled balls from the bottom of the hill usually bounce over the creek onto the green before the front bunkers were reintroduced?  If so, this may be why Flynn made the changes between 1930 and 1934 and added the 2 front bunkers to go along with the right side front bunker.  He may not have wanted low running shots to bound over the creek and onto the green.  

I have not seen shots spin off the green and into either the water (before the bunkers were put in) or into the traps since their reintroduction.  Certainly you wouldn't expect much backspin from a downhill lie, but I haven't seen it from the flat area either.

I think the effect of these bunkers is more psychological than anything else, especially with a front pin position.  Come on, Mike Cirba, the second worst bunkers in golf?  Could Flynn possibly have come up with the first and second worst bunkers in golf?  Flynn proposed the bunkers on the left of 5 as well.  He put them in sometime between 1930 and 1934.  I'm not sure why they were taken out prior to 1937 nor why they were put back in recently.  But I don't find them offensive in the least, in fact I like them.  

[Mike_Cirba]

Fictional tirades?  Is that what I'm doing, Sean?  

Sean...I applauded the tree removal a few years ago when Fazio & Co.  were on the job.  I never said it was the new Super's work.

I also bemoaned the fairway widths back then and am glad that some (like #5 around the bunker) are being widened.  If that's Fazio, he should be applauded.

The only thing I ever criticized was the atrocious bunker work, and the contention (after the fact) that this was all part of some 1930 "restoration" master strategy which was pure political spin by the club.  

[Mike_Cirba]

Wayne;

Even Bill Flynn made mistakes.  

That's likely why they were quickly removed. (perhaps even by him?)

[George Pazin]

Your take is quite interesting, Sean. Mine would be quite the opposite: the criticism is usually specific, and the refutations are merely attacking the poster rather than the specifics. You yourself chose to illuminate everyone as to the realities of the situation quite a while after the initial criticisms were levelled. Wouldn't it make more sense to refute the allegations when they're made, rather than contributing to ongoing soap opera we have seen on here?

[Mike_Cirba]

Help!!!!!!!    

I've barely been on GCA in months, and I return to find myself trapped in another Merion bunker project discussion!!!  

What's next?  Rees Jones?


ARRRRGGGGHHHHH!HHH!

[DMoriarty]

What's next?  Rees Jones?

You haven't heard that he has been hired to recontour all of Merion's greens???  Man, you have been gone a long time.  

[Carlyle Rood]

I've been out of town and haven't really followed the messages since I posted the photos; but, I did want to mention that the photo of the 16th is now one of my favorites that I've taken in the last three years.  And the others that follow are Honorable Mentions.

[SPDB]

George - When the criticisms are based on failures by some to appreciate either what the work entailed, what it accomplished and what was there before, it is very difficult to have a reasonable discussion about such matters.  If I base a criticism of your business on a uninformed, possibly false premise, will you respond to the substance of that criticism, or would you rather point out its falseness? It's very hard to have a substantive discussion about Merion, when one side is possessed only of conjecture or speculation. We are too far down the road to try and disabuse others of the error of this strategy.

Mike C. - You were correct in pointing out my error. I apologize, your tirades are not fictitious, they are most assuredly non-fictitious.  

[George Pazin]

Any and all criticism of my business is most assuredly deserved...

[SPDB]

George - You do realize that by continuing to order t-shirts from Bangladesh, Myanmar and Laos that you are directly supporting the repressive working conditions found in factories in those countries?

How can you continue to do this?

[George Pazin]

I got mouths to feed.

Don't forget Honduras, Vietnam, Malaysia, and a whole host of others. Kathy Lee's got nothing on me.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Carlyle,
Its an excellent photo. I'll post another for you at the end f this.

Mike,
Pay no attention to Sean and his piss-poor, "I have been aggrivated & assaulted attitude." I would warrant his opinion, if he ever had one. Instead he would rather attack what is seen in the pictures and as far as I know, pictures ARE in fact admissable evidence aren't they?

But the thing here is that I or you didn't start this--he did.

Ahhh...sweet validation. Apart from that comment.  I will

Tommy - You probably don't recall the depth of the bunkers in 1931 because you were not alive.

So who is the aggressor here? Especially when there is actual architectural discussion going on during the thread!

You see Sean, you mistake my critiques about fairway width as being a negative thing. Its actually about hopes that the club makes the changes that they talked about, as well as how bad fairway width has gotten because of the indifference between equipment manufacturers and golf architecture.  But you can't comment on that can you because you think its a negative! You just want to go on and on like we're in one of your law classes, endlessly debating Roe vs. Wade. Frankkly, I want no part of that debate, and the Merion one isn't that far behind!

You just simply take it all too personally and therfore should step back unless you have some architectural content both positive and negative to add. Not personal attacks on characters 3000 miles away. It doesn't behove you and a judge would read right through it!  

Merion to me will forever always be a golf course worthy of study from the natural rolls of the fairways to the magnificent and quirky routing and the mastefully contoured putting surfaces. The quirks of the course itself are what makes the course the GREAT, and that it is, the rough at the edges appeal that makes it almost seemingly like jumping into a time warp to 1922; the ruins of an old stone quarry to the unique use of Cobbs Creek. Its strategic golf architectrure at its finest and the balance of holes as well as the challenge they present from the tee to the green is almost unmatched in terms of its place in Golf History.......

Now in that short paragraph Sean, I have said more about the course architecturally then you have in your entire years on Golf Club Atlas, and I didn't even mention the bunkers.

Or are you just holding back on your wisdom about the place?

[Tommy_Naccarato]

Great job with the fairway mowing, Tommy. Really. The wavy, pinched look takes away from an otherwise great looking golf hole, doesn't it.

Jeff, Absolutely it does.

I think ALL golf courses have gotten too "artistic when it comes to wavy fairway lines. Some of them have no choice because of the endless mounds of containment that come into play.

What a fresh perspective playing a hole like the 18th would be knowing you can still pound it to the green for the shorter hitter--Its a gambling hole from tee to gree,, and if you miss on the approach, I think the penalty for doing so with the bunkering that is around that green, as well as the green itself is more then acceptable. One of the problems here is that just too many people when visiting the course for the first or second or third time, let alone everytime can't get Hogan out of their mind.  That shows the power of that image and just how definitive his swing really was.  

But then you have the architecture of the hole, and its an outstanding closing hole. If your playing a good round at Merion you are going to have to play the architecture, and thats a rarity for a classic golf course in this modern age don't you think?

[Jeff_Mingay]

Wayne Morrison:

Relative to the fairway mowing pattern at Merion's home hole these days, I'm curious: what were Wilson's and Flynn's general thoughts on rough grass areas?

I ask, in part, because I've been looking at old articles and writings (and writing myself) about Meadow Club, a 1927 design by Dr. Mackenzie and Robert Hunter, north of San Francisco. (Mackenzie's first golf course design in North America, they say.)

In his writings about the golf coruse design, Hunter trumpets that the Meadow Club course was originally almost completely devoid of rough grass areas (partially in emulation of the Old Course). I find that fascinating.  

[ChipOat]

Wayne:

In reverse order:

I have never seen a ball "back up" off the 4th green unless it barely made the front edge which is unlikely if one is hitting a "spinnable" club from 40-80 yards on the flat part of the fairway.  From further back, longer clubs from downhill lies don't spin that much - even downhill.  If it ever did happen, there has always been (or since 1965, at least) a 3+ foot collar of rough between the front of the green and the edge of the brook.

I have seen many a mis-hit shot bounce over that creek - sometimes short in the rough, sometimes on the putting surface and sometimes over the green (which is the worst place to be if you're not actually in the hazard).

As a dyed-in-the-wool penal hazard enthusiast, I have often wished that the brook be widened, deepened and brought up to the green's edge a la the Swilken Burn on the first hole at TOC (or Cobb's Creek on the 11th hole at Merion East).

Those 2 front bunkers were there in 1930.  If you look closely at the picture that was used for reference, you can see that Faz/McDonald or whomever replaced them in a slightly different place than the originals (we're talking 4-5 feet at the most).

As to which of us knows the most about what: I've played what Hugh Wilson designed but I've never read what he wrote.  I bow to your scholarly credentials in this regard.

[wsmorrison]

Chip,

Do you therefore think it reasonable to believe that the front bunkers on 4, besides the psychological effect, were implemented to make topped approach shots more difficult to land on the green?

I found the 2 added bunkers on Hagley photographs dated Sep 9 and 27, 1930 (around the time of the Amateur).  It appeared  to me, from the collection of Flynn drawings that Merion has and that I've located, that the bunkers were built after the 1930 Amateur.  I see that you are right and that I was mistaken.  The linen drawings of 1930 representing the final plans were misfiled for a time and I have not seen them in quite some time.  They have been located and I plan to study these final plans again as soon as the archives room is completed.  I expect these bunkers are indicated on the Flynn linens.  These 2 front bunkers no longer appear to be present as of a June 25, 1939 photograph.  Do you like the 2 bunkers?  I do, especially considering your empirical evidence that balls for the most part do not spin off the green.

[wsmorrison]

Chip, you may bow to my scholarly credentials (although I was wrong in my conditional assumption of the timing of the construction of the 2 front bunkers), however, I bow as deeply or more so to your time spent on those hallowed grounds.

[Willie_Dow]

Sorry Wayne, but I've been in the looking for data on Newport!

[wsmorrison]

Bill,
Any luck meeting with Mrs. Louise Russell while you were in CT?  It would be a stroke of luck if she has any info on her grandfather, Hugh Wilson.  Talk to you soon.
Wayne

[T_MacWood]

Sketches of the 4th and 5th holes--Merion Cricket Club 1930 (in the hand of Wm Flynn, if I'm not mistaken):


4th Hole


5th Hole

[ChipOat]

Wayne:

I don't know why those 2 bunkers in front of #4 green were put there.  But given the way they were contoured plus the rough behind them, I'll bet they never captured a ball that spun back into them.  Besides, the smaller 1.62" ball didn't spin that much - even off a purposely rusty Niblick with grooves that would now be non-conforming.

Those bunkers might have been intended as penal to capture a mis-hit shot that barely cleared the brook or they might have been intended more as "eye candy".  Or they could have been both.

So long as they don't flood when the brook rises, I'm fine with them.

I still wish the brook itself was more penal, though.

As to my time spent on those hallowed grounds, the miniscule amount of that marvelous experience that has occurred in the last 15 years disheartens me and would shock you.

Tom MacWood:

The rendering of #4 which you (i.e. your source) have dated 1930 is missing the large bunker about 100 yards off the tee in the center of that hollow which the aerial photographs clearly show as being there in late September, 1930.

I have no explanation for that difference having never seen your graphic before.  Where did you find it?

Mike Cirba:

What's wrong with revisiting this (or any) topic with some frequency?  It's obviously of particular importance to a number of denizons of The Treehouse (myself included) on both sides of the issue.

So what if we'll never agree?  I enjoy the periodic debates.  Something good usually comes out of it - especially since Wayne got his arms wrapped around all that research.