In mid-December it was time to drive down to Florida for a few weeks of holidays. The most sane way to drive from Toronto to Naples is 24 hours of driving time spread over 3 days going straight down I75 from Detroit. The more sane golf way is to tale five days and go down I95. So, being a golf nut, I took the golf way.
An eight hour drive through Buffalo and Syracuse and down I81 and the PA turnpike gets you to the Philadelphia area on day one. I ended up staying at a nice new HGI in Valley Forge. Turns out to be a measly 10 miles or so from Merion. Definitely got to take a look at Merion in winter.
First objective (OK, maybe I'm obsessive) was to see if I could find the survey marker at College and Golf House Road that is the starting point of the old Merion deeds. Nope, all I found dodging traffic (not too many, but very nice cars) in the middle of the intersection was a number of water valves.
Oh well, let's move on down Golf House Road. It is amazing how compact the northern (and southern) sections of the course are. You can basically see most of the course from either Golf House Road or Ardmore Ave. Hard to imagine how they are going to squeeze the patrons on to golf course for the Open. I could envisage grandstands all the way up Golf House Road.
Sixteen looked very narrow. The fairway around the quarry looked redundant. Do even the members play around? I thought you could could lay-up down to the quarry left, but that doesn't seem possible.
The 15th fairway runs absurdly close to the road. What was Hugh Wilson thinking? The green looks appropriately difficult to approach and hold.
Further down the road, the new putting green is very close to the road. It is quite long and undulating, and doesn't appear to have any section that would be flat enough to host a tee for the 14th. First the left side with the infamous stop sign looming and then the right side.
The 14th tee is a very long, narrow RTJ-type runway tee. It extends back beyond the stop sign, but is displaced inwards to a degree that the stop sign won't be an issue.
If you have a high speed internet connection, here is a link to a brief video of the 14th tee area.
http://s234.photobucket.com/albums/ee260/350dtm/Merion%2012-2012/?action=view¤t=MVI_3155.mp4Further down the road, I was surprised to see a large fan next to the first green. There appear to be others around the course too.
From Ardmore, looking across the second and eighth and ninth, the elevation change is more than I would have expected, and certainly more than is captured in pictures.
The fairways are almost laughably narrow. Here is number two. One wonders if the two tone grass suggests that they will narrow the fairways further for the Open. And, the bunkers already look a little lost in the rough.
Moving the other way down Ardmore, could this be the long lost Alps feature on the 10th.
Time to move on. Pinehurst looks like another nice day's drive away. To be continued.........................