Pat:
I too would like to see all the orginal fairway lines restored at Merion East. You asked me a question and I gave you what I think is the accurate answer of why it has not been completely done.
The green chairman spoke about the narrowed fairways at Merion about four years ago saying the club had never expanded their fairways back out after the 1971 US Open. So that would've been about 30 years of narrowed down Open fairways. Perhaps the same thing happened at Shinnecock to some extent. That course went from 52 acres of fairway area to 22 in the last Open. Shinnecock may take it back out some but I doubt they'll go back over 30 acres.
Merion's green chairman said they would expand some of the fairways to some extent but probably not all. #5 is the most notable example of restored fairway near the original lines. The major purpose of expanding some fairway lines to a degree on some holes was to get the bunkers back into more function.
The reason most of the rest have not been done and may not be done is probably because they feel it would make the course play much easier. Obviously that's probably true even though, like you, I wish they would restore all the old fairway lines and widths. From a playability standpoint I'd have to think much of the membership would appreciate that too. There may be some in the club, and some of the better golfers, who like the course to play harder with the rough but others would probably enjoy it playing less penal if all the original fairway widths were restored.
However, I feel the most interesting thing to do regarding the fairway sizes at Merion would be to go through each hole and discuss the strategic implications of various fairway sizes on each hole as we're doing on this thread with #14 and to some extent #18. While I believe restoring all the fairway width on #14 and #18 would actually make those holes play more interesting, even if somewhat easier than they do now, one very important reason to do that on those holes, in my opinion, is simply the look of it when standing at or around the clubhouse. With those two fairways expanded all the way back to their orginal sizes the look of those holes would be awesome---something like a huge wave of fairway coming at you across that section of the golf course.
Two other holes that would be most interesting to discuss this way are #10 and #11.
Actually, while at the Amateur I did have a pretty interesting discussion with Buddy Marucci about fairway width alternatives on hole #2. On that one I'm inclined to agree with him. His reasoning made very good sense and frankly that hole's fairway is little different than it was origninally.
Frankly, it would be interesting to go through every hole at Merion East and discuss the various ramificatons between original fairway sizes and the way the holes are now or perhaps at what individual size and fairway contour they'd play best and most interesting.
Personally, I've never been a fan of "standardized" fairway width whether it be wide or narrow. I'm an advocate of tailoring fairway width to each particular hole that makes that hole the most interesting and makes them all produce over-all "course variety".
On a course like Merion East, or any course for that matter, what would you prefer to see in fairway width? Would you prefer to see each hole of a standard width of about 50-60 yards wide as most all of them were in the old days or would you like to see them all about 30-35 yards wide as most fairways are today or some perhaps 30 and others say 70?
I'd like to see some wide and some narrow depending upon what each hole offers strategically and I'd like to see vastly varying fairway widths from tee to tee as I play a golf course simply for variety's sake. I just think the variety in sizes and shapes makes the whole round more challening and more interesting.