Rich and Mike:
Oh no, the back tees are not all the same that you saw in 2001 (has it been that long ago?). There's a good deal more on some holes now. But this should pretty much max the course out (unless they buy that property behind #12 tee!
).
The "new" back tee on #5 at 475 isn't there any longer and the "new/new" one is 25 yards behind where it was at 500+. #18 "new" back tee apparently was redone too and positioned a bit farther back with a lot of reworked earth-work around and behind it where that maintenance road is. They all seem to sit in there well though and look good other than #15 where you don't have a view of the front of the fairway anymore from the very back but to the US Am players that's not where they'll be looking anyway.
What Mike Cirba said there in his post I've been saying for years (and Nick Faldo who only saw the course one time) cleverly observed about Merion East---eg it's not the type of course one can just look at the total card yardage on and get a sense of what it plays like. The so-called "three stretches" are pretty unique in a routing sense and in how they get into any player's head in a whole round context!
My hope for the US Am is that they don't go too overboard with the greens and their speed. I'd just hope they put a little less speed on them than they might tend to want to and compsenate with a little more firmness throughout, weather permitting. I think that'd really test those players mentally while at the same time really reward those who play both thoughtful and really execute their shots, and that definitely means on and around the green-ends. I'd love to see the very best performances rewarded with good scores.
Personally, I hope they play the Am around 11 on the stimp on those greens but that's just a reference I use, I guess, and Matt Shaeffer says he really doesn't even use a stimpmeter at Merion East (a very good thing!)---he just sort of feels the conditions.