When will Merion get back to normal?

[Ryan McLaughlin]

Maybe I have been on GCA to much lately, but I dont think I have ever seen an Open course USGAized as Merion.  Unnatural ribbons of fairway, tee boxes on putting greens, etc.  It seems like the blue coats really had to stretch normalcy to make the Open work.  I like the course and the play so far but I just havent seen it to this extent before.  How long before the membership and staff gets Merion back to it's regular setup?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Define "regular set-up"

I don't know that Merion ever fully recovered from prior Opens in terms of fairway width

[Ryan McLaughlin]

Maybe that answers the bigger question...how much is the membership giving up by letting the USGA come in to tweak.  Is it truely worth it long term.

[Howard Riefs]

Pretty soon for some of the "restored" bunkers:

But the real bombshell in the Merion conversation was dropped by Ill, who revealed after a discussion of Merion's decade long restoration (tree removal, bunker work, etc...) that following the 2013 U.S. Open, several of the "restored" bunkers--which were actually shifted to pinch landing areas on holes like 2, 15, 16--will be restored to their previous positions.

http://www.geoffshackelford.com/homepage/2013/6/10/restored-merion-to-be-restored-after-13-us-open.html