Merion 2016

[Mike Cirba]

Mike,

I don't think it's arbitrary...you've got a couple practice rounds and four tournament rounds...but why not repeat some of them? I understand there is a bit of a chew factor, but these are going to be the most manicured greens on the planet that year...

Jim,

I only call it arbitrary because if there were three scheduled practice rounds they would want seven pin positions.   

I agree that they can recycle and recover during a week long tournament.   It's not like these guys will be gouging the green with clubs after missing a four-footer!   

[Sean Leary]

Does anyone have a picture of 12 green?

[Dan Boerger]

Jim - I agree ... why not repeat? You could repeat the Saturday and Sunday positions from the practice rounds. A reward, if you will, for those who made the cut.

Sean -- Not sure any picture would do it justice. It's the most severe (in terms of pitch change) green on the course by far IMO.

I recall reading how one player in tournament competition (not sure which event) actually putted it out of bounds (onto Ardmore Avenue).

[Kyle Harris]

Jim - I agree ... why not repeat? You could repeat the Saturday and Sunday positions from the practice rounds. A reward, if you will, for those who made the cut.

Foot traffic concentrates around the hole. On a potentially hot June day with greens already pushed to their limit keeping the hole in the same spot for more than a day could be a disaster.

[Jay Kirkpatrick]

are there six distinct pin placements on ANY of those greens?  the only time i played merion was about two weeks after a major aeration.  the greens were not very good or fast by their standards, yet 12 was insanely quick.  i was pin high right of a center right pin and i had no chance.  i can't wait to watch the open @ merion. its going to be awesome...

[JSlonis]

I would just say this. Plenty of amateur golfers have had no issue finishing the 12th hole with the green in it's current form. There were plenty of scores posted over several years during the playing of the Hugh Wilson tourney. Why mess with it???!!! We played when the greens were running around 12. Many greens are borderline at that speed and to have them play around 13 is just silly.

The same can be said for #15 green.  

Dan,

With any type of normal stroke, you can't putt a ball off a green OB at Merion.

[Mike Cirba]

This whole thing makes no sense to me.

For argument's sake, lets say that there are 124 golfers in the US Open the first two days and the two practice rounds.   That adds up to 31 foursomes, and if they tee off 10 minutes apart that would be five hours of tee times.   Caddies are a non-issue as the caddies are needed for walkers in non-tournament conditions, as well.

During the final two rounds you'd have 60, plus ties.  

On busy summer days in regular season, I can imagine traffic much heavier than that is routine.   I would think that members and their guest would be teeing off from 7am til 5pm throughout the season.

Are those arguing that there isn't time for repair saying that today each green at Merion East uses 7 or more hole locations in mid-season to avoid problematic wear?

I think Jamie's post above is spot on...as someone who has played Merion in top competitions, I think his opinion is quite credible and valuable here.

[Dan Boerger]

There are only about 250 - 500 GCA'ers who know more about Merion than I do, and the attribution to the 12th hole isn't made clear from below, yet I do recall someone (again, one of the 250 - 500 who know more) telling me it was 12:

http://www.essortment.com/all/meriongolfclub_rlxs.htm


The East Course was tested by America's best golfers almost immediately. In 1914 the United States Amateur championships were held at the East and West (old) Courses at Merion. There would be two rounds of qualifying play before individual matches determined a champion. There was a surprise leader after the first round on the West Course - a chunky, 14-year old from Atlanta, Georgia named Bobby Jones. Jones led the field with a 74, which included a putt he knocked past the hole, off the green and into a brook. Speedy greens have been a hallmark of Merion Golf Club ever since. Walter Hagen, a great professional of the deftest touch with a putter, once putted too boldly and watch his ball roll down a slope, off the green and into the street and out-of-bounds.

[Joe Bausch]

Dan, I believe that 74 for Jones was in the late morning qualifying round on the West course.  He followed that up with an 89 on the East course later in the afternoon.

[JESII]

Re: putting out of bounds on the 12th...imagine the greens at about 6 feet on the stimpmeter. At that speed, you could put the pin way up in the back corner, 20 feet higher than you could today, maybe 10 feet from the back edge. Now imagine being on the front left with about 50 or 60 feet to go and about 5 feet uphill. I can see getting one a little too solid and running it 10 feet past. Once it's there, there's never any grass on that hill on the way to 13 so if you just get it over the apron I can see putting the ball OB...well, I can see someone else doing it...

[Mike Cirba]

Sully,

I was imagining the same thing with Hagen....I think that's what had to have happened.   

[Phil McDade]

You have to wade through a lot of pics, but there are several here of both the 12th and 15th greens.

http://www.golfarchitecturepictures.com/Web%20Galleries/USA/Pennsylvania/Merion%20East%202/index.html

Serious inquiry -- rather than radically alter a green(s), would mandatory soft spikes work? The best mainstream description of green/pin positions re. the Open I've read came in one of Feinstein's books, where he rehashed the incident at Olympic Lake about Stewart's putt, and Meeks, and the problems with the 18th green having minimal numbers of pin positions. The sense I got, from reading that, is that it largely was due to too much foot traffic around a particular pin position.