Merion (east) 18th Hole

[John_Cullum]

I have never been there, but I watched most of the best amateurs in the world struggling to stop their approach shot on the 18th green. The hole is 505 yds. I guess its one of the holes lengthened, but it must originally have been set up at 470 or so. The green, which was designed to be approached from 200 yards plus away, is sloped front to back. That a seemingly impossible scenario. Add that the rough was high around the greens for the Am event, I have to question the maintenance meld. Since most everyone has been praising the set up, what am I missing?

[JESII]

Each shot must be better than the one prior if you are to make a par, and the first one needs to be pretty damn good.

An uncommon demand for todays top players.

[wsmorrison]

John,

The green is sloped back to front on the front ~60% of the green, only the rear portion slopes front to back.  If the entire green sloped front to back I think you would have a claim that the rough surrounds would be better not as deep for such a long approach.  But this is not the case with the 18th green.

There was some serious rough around all the greens, not just the 18th.  The fairway rough was pretty tame so it was not too difficult to advance the ball as far as needed.  Errant approach shots had to deal with some deep stuff.  Nothing wrong with that.

Sully is right, pars were hard to come by on a number of holes.  If anyone has the scoring figures for the stroke play portion of the tournament, it would be nice to see.

[TEPaul]

JohnC:

Merion's 18th has always been a hard par. So has the 5th hole. So what? Everyone faces the same problems and solutions. Both have been lengthened---#18 from originally 458 to eventually 505 and #5 from 421 to eventually 504. Both holes for the big guns have probably gotten even harder than they ever were but so what---the overall strategic concept of both holes is still the same----play four great shots for a par or try to settle for a bogie at worst. These two holes were designed and built in an era where a few architects were into a design philosophy sometimes we call "shot testing" and these two holes are classic examples of that old design philosophy. Back then things like GIR and even par just weren't as significant as apparently some feel they are today.

[John_Cullum]

Tom

A hard hole is fine, but from my obsevation, with a hole on the back part of the green, hardly anyone could keep from going into heavy rough. I never saw the hole on the front part. Could this be a break down in the IMM?

[TEPaul]

John:

While the 18th is a very hard par generally it's by no means impossible to hit a good approach shot in there. To do that you need to hit a good drive and generally a long one in the fairway and from there a well executed approach that hits the green can get close. I saw James Lepp (medalist who I thought had a real good chance of winning the Amateur) hit a mid-iron into the middle of the green, check it and filter it left a bit about six feet behind the pin.

I just wrote a thread about #14 and how it would play with the fairway expanded back to original width (and a Flynn proposed bunker added) and I also believe that the original fairway width on #18 should be restored. That might make #18 a bit easier than it is now but I feel it would make it far more interesting with all the increased approach shot possibilites from fairway. If there was fairway way out the the right (where it used to be) players would go at that green more freely but I guarantee you going at that green even from fairway way out to the right is definitely NOT the angle from which to try to approach that green!  

[peter_mcknight]

18th hole stroke average during stroke play--4.942 (hardest hole on the course, no. 5 was 0.07 behind).

2 birdies
95 pars
150 bogeys
47 double bogeys
16 others
n=310

[ChipOat]

John Cullum:

1) #18 has never been "holdable" from the rough under any conditions - for members at 405 yards, previous championships at 440+ or the '05 Am at 500+.

2) The green has always been (including last week), "holdable" from the fairway with any resonably lofted shot from about 200 yards OR you can bounce the ball on as Hogan did with his 1 iron in '50.  That was do-able last week as the fairway was not watered in front.

I saw some pretty impressive soft 3 woods from 220+ in both the '71 and '81 U.S. Open that had that "butterfly with sore feet" thing when they landed.

If you're a talented ball striker and long enough off the tee, that green is eminently fair - not easy but definitely not unfair.

Thus, is the 250+ hitter at a disadvantage to the 300+ hitter on that hole given the demands of the 2nd shot?  You bet, but that's not unusual on most any long hole, I think.

Also, it is MUCH easier to chip back to the hole from over that green  - even from the rough - than from the fairway in front.  Missing long is way better than being short so I'm guessing that some of the shots you saw were more-or-less intentional.  Either that, or the players you saw didn't have the right shot in their bag, so to speak.  How many college-age bombers have you seen that have learned to hit a high soft middle or long iron?

3) Not that it changes this discussion, but the hole location was very much in the front on Saturday - did you not see Dillon Dougherty's shot that hit the flagstick (basketstick?) and won his semi-final match?

[Mike_Sweeney]

Isn't the 18th at Merion supposed to be hard?

[ChipOat]

Mike:

I think John Cullum is saying it didn't look fair.  I tried to articulate why that is not so despite what he may have seen on TV.

[Mike_Sweeney]

Mike:

I think John Cullum is saying it didn't look fair.  I tried to articulate why that is not so despite what he may have seen on TV.

Chip,


I am probably one of the few here that believe a hole can be "unfair". Merion East 18 is not one of them.

[TEPaul]

Chip;

Actually, having played that 18th as many times as I have and done so many different things on it which has to take into account the fact I've always been short, I'd say you forgot to mention a very important and generally functional option of how to approach that green. If I hit a good drive (for me) in the past (before the tee length addition) I generally found myself in the vicinity of the Hogan plaque distance-wise for my approach to the green. What I did is take out a 1 or 2 iron and hit it low just so it'd hit the top of the last fairway roll or the DOWNSLOPE on that last fairway roll and turbo on down into the swale in front of that green and truck on up the upslope to the green with the perfect "weight" like a red-assed rabbit that was just about out of steam. That generally left me with my traditional 47 ft birdie putt.  

Played that way the hole was nothing much more than a thin little slice of rich carrot cake for me!

[John_Cullum]

I never ask for fairness, just playability. My primary concern was that the rough seemed too high behind the putting surface, as it is apparently quite predictable that well struck approach shots to a back half hole will wind up long. It seems as though the hole is more of a crap shoot than a skill test.

[ChipOat]

Tom Paul:

Your turbo-roll strategy was 50% of my "bounce it on" reference in item #2 of my post - just not articulated as precisely.

[ChipOat]

John Cullum:

I believe if you played the hole several times you might well amend your opinion.

[TEPaul]

"Tom Paul:

Your turbo-roll strategy was 50% of my "bounce it on" reference in item #2 of my post - just not articulated as precisely."

Chip:

Interesting that you should say that. I watched a number of good and strong and long players all last week stand in that fairway and hit clubs like 4 and 5 irons a mile in the air trying to land it on the fairway UPSLOPE before that green to try and bounce it on--only to see their ball die on the upslope like a dead smelt. Obviously they were trying to do this knowing that if they landed the ball well onto the green (near the transition from back to front and front to back) they'd go over the green.

I felt like telling them---"You young magnificent ball striking idiots with less than half a brain, you should consult with wily old cats like me and Chip Oat on how to play that approach shot!

[mike_beene]

If they called it a par 5 would everyone be saying how easy it was?

[JESII]

I never ask for fairness, just playability. My primary concern was that the rough seemed too high behind the putting surface, as it is apparently quite predictable that well struck approach shots to a back half hole will wind up long. It seems as though the hole is more of a crap shoot than a skill test.

John,

I think the amount of ground time most balls coming into that green experience  [a ball just short takes 5 - 10 - or 15 seconds to stop rolling, a ball just a bit too strong will generally spend a long time rolling down the back slope] makes it appear worse on TV than the reality. The shot demand is very high, but the options to attack the green are in fact numerous. I think this last point is what makes the hole so good, once you extract your ball and your ass from the quarry, you must hit a very good shot to get the ball on the green (whether it be your second or seventh swing).

[TEPaul]

"If they called it a par 5 would everyone be saying how easy it was?"

MikeB:

Of course they would. In less than a week they'd call it a stupid easy little finisher if they did nothing to the hole other than call it a par 5. The fact is Merion East's #18 has always been a very difficult par 4 "half par" (somewhere between a par 4 and par 5 in reality scoring).

Nothing has changed about the hole's difficulty with the tee length addition. It plays about the same now for the good player as it did years ago for the good player. Everyone from Hogan on down understood what Merion's finisher was all about. Criticizing it today is just not accurate or logical. It is today what it's always been and was originally intended to be---eg bascially a par 4 "half par" highly demanding "shot testing" finisher.

And this is the way those finishing holes should be and always have been. I'll tell you right now, in particularly stroke play but also match play #17 and #18 really get in your head early. And that's why that mid-routing "short stretch" takes on added strategic significance.