What grassing can do!

[TEPaul]

I went over to Merion late yesterday (for a Lacrosse Foundation function of all things) and decided to spin down Golf Club road to look at #16,#15,#14 etc. I guess it's been a while since I was over there but the sight of those bunker surrounds shocked the beeejeesus out of me.

You should see them---they're the hairiest, ruggedest looking mothers I've ever seen on a golf course. Those surrounds look sort of like Don King with light brown hair. The fescue sure has taken over and it standing about a foot and a half straight up!!

They seem to me to be almost too rugged looking now in juxtapostion to the rest of the look of the course. Forget about that puffy and upholstered look they had coming out of the recent bunker restoration project---that isn't even remotely detectable anymore. Matter of fact, I took a good close look with Wayne at the sod on the surrounds on #18 and #13 and it's now cuppy and sort of crumbling and slipping some like wind and water has been working their natural magic on it.

Matter of fact, forget about the "White Faces" of Merion getting your attention. Now it's the extreme hirsuteness on the pates of those white faces that gets your attention bigtime!!

I can't imagine either how some of the members, particularly the older ones, are dealing with this new look and playability. Those surround look like torture chambers.  

Is it possible that this website shouldn't have been all over Merion for that bunker project when those bunkers hadn't had some time to mature? Is it possible this website should've just waited for the grassing and those surrounds to mature for a year or more?

It really is amazing what grassing can do for a look and a playability of bunkering and their surrounds if you give it some time!

PS;

Ironically, David Fay, of all people, spoke at this Lacrosse function at Merion last night--and I think his exact words were;

"Don't bet AGAINST the US Open returning to Merion!"

[Brian Phillips]

Is it possible that this website shouldn't have been all over Merion for that bunker project when those bunkers hadn't had some time to mature? Is it possible this website should've just waited for the grassing and those surrounds to mature for a year or more?

Yes

Yes

Tom, could please learn how to use a bloody digital camera!!  You can't tantalise us on here with that sort of description without photos man!!

Get Wayne to help you if needed....get anyone...please!!

Brian

[TEPaul]

Brian:

That's a good idea. Some good digital photos up close and personal on those bunkers would really shock some on here! I better find someone to do it real soon because I can't believe some of the members aren't in a full state of revolt.

It just may be possible that Merion is having some success in training and conditoning their members to actually like and respect getting beat up by their course every day like Oakmont has been doing with their members for about 50-60 years now!

I think the Oakmont membership takes a perverse pride in getting constantly clobbered by their golf course.

But what I don't understand is the word seemed to be that the membership was real unhappy with Hanse and Kittleman for restoring a few bunkers with some really penal fescue and grass surrounds a few years ago. These surrounds right now are far more rugged and penal than anything Gil and Bill did and more than I've ever seen over there.

[A_Clay_Man]

Tom- Reading your post, I was reminded of the transition of the look of the bunkers at Pebble, as it was getting ready for the Tiger fest in 00'.

The hairy "eyebrows" over the bunkers lip, were comprised of what I thought was an amazing long grass.

the extreme hirsuteness on the pates

Is that was that means?

I'm not sure how it translated through picture, but I can recall watching a players ball enter one of these un-groomed areas. I was standing less than two feet away when it entered the grass. The ball was never found. The birdie Tiger made on that Saturday on #6 from the top lip of one of those bunkers, was, truely amazing.

[TEPaul]

"The hairy "eyebrows" over the bunkers lip, were comprised of what I thought was an amazing long grass."

Adam:

I'm not talking hairy eyebrows here---this is the full court bunker press I'm talking here!

[Mike_Cirba]

Is it possible that this website shouldn't have been all over Merion for that bunker project when those bunkers hadn't had some time to mature? Is it possible this website should've just waited for the grassing and those surrounds to mature for a year or more?

1) No.  The original Merion bunkers weren't about being Penal turf nurseries, they were about inconsistency and chance and rugged weathering.  If this was a restoration back to 1930, as the club claimed, how then to explain the current look?  Do you think they looked remotely like this at any time in the club's history??

2) I believe that public criticism of the bunker project is the CAUSE of the Don Kingitis that is currently sprouting from the bunkers.  After being stung by all of the negative reaction, and even a Philly Inquirer lead Sunday sports story, (not good when you're trying to impress the folks in Far HIlls), they seem to be trying to make them rugged looking again in the only way that the newly thick grassed faces allows...length.  

Is the club still claiming this is the way they looked and played in 1930, or have they dropped that spin?

[TEPaul]

"The original Merion bunkers weren't about being Penal turf nurseries, they were about inconsistency and chance and rugged weathering."

Mike Cirba:

Inconsistency and chance and rugged weathering is what the Merion bunkers have right now. No matter how you slice it there are just so many ways you can define inconsistency, chance and rugged weathering---the very things you've advocated all along!

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom;

I'm happy for that, truly I am.    

Even more than that, I'd LOVE to see the US Open return to Merion as David Fay alludes to, for all sorts of personal and sentimental reasons.  

However, in relation to your questions, I believe perhaps naively that criticism on GCA was responsible for their present maintenance, or lack thereof.  

Do you think this look and playability is what they were going for two-three years ago?

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

When everybody was hollering and screamng, I made the case that time, Mother Nature and the difficulty in maintaining the surrounds would lead to an evolutionary process whereby the bunkers would be transformed in their look.

So, don't look at the issue as if everybody was wrong.
Look at it in the proper perspective, that I was right again  

Getting in and out of the bathtub is another issue.

How is the bunker wol holding up ?
When we last examined it, there appeared to be problems that would have to be repaired or reconstructed.

[TEPaul]

"When everybody was hollering and screamng, I made the case that time, Mother Nature and the difficulty in maintaining the surrounds would lead to an evolutionary process whereby the bunkers would be transformed in their look."

Pat:

That's really funny. The things you said back then are all over the back pages and it occurs to me you were saying Merion was going to have all kinds of problems with their bunkers--so many, in fact, that you demanded to be shown their mission statement.

Now you're telling us they were going to turn out this way all along???

That's really funny. You try to take credit for things even when you're 180 degress wrong, don't you? Maybe you don't remember the things you said, but I certainly do!  

[TEPaul]

The point of this thread is to establish the question and the possiblity that perhaps many of us who criticized Merion and it's bunker project so severely in the beginning were wrong! Oh my God, what a revolting thought!    

[SL_Solow]

Although determining who was right when is a fascinating subject in its own right (what did the President know and when did he know it regarding bunkergate) I will avoid that portion of this thread.  What I find most interesting is its reminder that golf course architecture is not a static art because we are dealing with a growing medium.  Accordingly, sometimes we have to give a new course or a renovation time to "grow in" before making a "final" judgement.  Additionally it reemphasizes the important role a greenskeeper plays in the process.  In my own limited experience as a principal player on the member side in the renovation of Briarwood CC (Colt & Allison, 1921) I have seen the vision that we had improve in each of the tree years since the work was completed as the grass takes hold and our outstanding Greenskeper and his crew are able to fine tune the maintenance.  While the initial work told us we had done well, the true impact continues to be revealed.  Perhaps we should remind ourselves that first impressions, while valuable, are only that and should be followed up over time.

[RJ_Daley]

Gentlemen:  before this thread goes on for 10 pages (as it seems anything with Merion being discussed usually does), Please - one of you - get yourself out there and take some pictures to share.  It may just save us a blabberfest of conjecture and debate.  I suggest one pull up those infamous pictures of the puffy upholstery looking bunkers when they were new and take the same angle picture now.  Then, perhaps the only debate will be that they may have gone overboard on the length of the grass surrounds.  TEPaul, and Puffy Wilson can get a string trimmer and on some midnight manuvres they can rectify the length situation...

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom;

Would you agree that we've ultimately had a positive influence if the bunkers are now gnarly and nasty again?

It seems to me that I recall the main original purpose of the bunker restoration a few years back was to "clean up the bunkers".   That somehow morphed into a reactionary 1930's retro theme once the criticism began, but no way can they be claiming that 1930 is still what they're going for...perhaps the 70s with "Link", Mod-Squad toupees in place.

It's called, dance to whatever tune will please the USGA.

The rest is just spin.  

[TEPaul]

Mike Cirba:

The look of the bunkering certainly has changed and may not seem to be what the club said they were going to do. But I think it might be a bit presumptious to assume that they changed the look and playability to be more rugged because of some reaction to criticism from Golfclubatlas.com, if by "we" you mean Golfclubatlas.com.

But I have no real idea what influence this website's criticism had on what they ultimately decided to do. I'm pretty confident, though, if someone asked them if Golfclubtlas.com was what influenced them the club would say categorically NO!

[Mike_Cirba]

Tom;

I believe they'd sooner admit that William Flynn has more to do with the present course configuration than Hugh Wilson.  

[TEPaul]

Mike:

Actually both Merion and Shinnecock have no problem at all with their Flynn heritage. For Shinnecock it was the third time around with their course and they couldn't be more comfortable now to know Flynn designed their course instead of Dick Wilson as some thought. As for Flynn and Merion they completely understand what he did in the latter half of their approximately 20 year architectural construction phase.

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

Your memory is faulty,

Go back and reread what I said,

I said that the tops that curved over the edges would be impossible to maintain and that Mother Nature would take care of the look that paniced so many.

And, that the bunker wol and bathtub problems would remain.

[TEPaul]

"I said that the tops that curved over the edges would be impossible to maintain and that Mother Nature would take care of the look that paniced so many."

Pat:

I'm not sure I know what you mean by that. I don't know that the tops that curved over the edges, as you say, are impossible to maintain. They're now covered by such high fescue grass as to be virtually unnoticeable. What did you have in mind as "impossible to maintain"?

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

The underbelly of the wraparound feature.

[A_Clay_Man]

Gentlemen, Could someone expound on:
1) What SHOULD the bunkers look like? If I read Tom Pauls initial post,he seemed giddy over the bunkers current presentation. Was/Is that the case?

What Bunker style fits the property, or the course?

Sorry to have to ask, but I hope theres more than me, who'd like to know.

[TEPaul]

redanman;

The bunkers on #13 and #14 look just fine as of a couple of days ago. The thing is the bunker surrounds of Merion East now look extremely rugged and high fescue grassy (the fescue is standing straight up on the surrounds about a foot like Bart Simpson's hair)!

I'm not that sure what to make of bunker surrounds that look like that at Merion East. They're different from anything the course has ever seen, in my opinion, but very interesting nonetheless. With the high fescue rough cut down they do present an interesting juxtaposition to the rest of the golf course.

It may've been on another thread, but, I swear the look of Merion East's bunker surrounds now do look a helluva lot like Hidden Creek's. Now what to do you think of that?

Did Hugh Wilson spend some of his six month architectural investigation journey in 1910 in the Heathlands??

If you really want to see some great looking bunkers at Merion East, bunkers that didn't even need time to mature with grassing, check out the bunkers on the right in the quarrry on #16. Those ones were done in-house, and from Day One they've looked awesome. About as natural looking as bunkering can look!!

[Joe Hancock]

So is the bottom line here that the bunkers at Merion are better now that the surrounding grass (whether actually fescue or not!) is taller?

Interesting premise, if that's where the discussion is at.

Joe