It’s Merion on top after wild week
HAVERFORD — With apologies to Justin Rose, Merion Golf Club’s East Course, Hugh Wilson’s gem of a course design, was the star of the 2013 U.S. Open that concluded Sunday.
While the leadup to this return to Merion for the first time in 32 years was filled with intrigue as to how the track would hold up to the modern players, their spaceshuttle-design driv- ers and the souped-up golf balls, there was a lot to read and write about the remarkable history of the 111-acre former farm that has always been considered among the top 10 golf courses in America.
And for those of us who have grown to love that golf course, to be hit with wall-to-wall stories in newspapers and magazines and
on television made it a time to embrace. Heck, Golf Channel’s airing of the original ABC broadcast of the final round and the Lee Trevino-Jack Nicklaus playoff at the 1971 U.S. Open alone was the kind of buried treasure Merion fans can’t get enough of.
To hear most of the pros tell it — and just watching the best players in the world ply their trade is always what makes a U.S. Open so special — a short Merion layout would be defenseless if rain softened the course in the days leading up to the Open.
Well, if it was rain they wanted, it was rain they got. Sitting in the media center last Monday while wave after wave of drenching rains piled on to the three-and-a-half inches the remnants of tropical storm Andrea had dropped the previous Friday, you couldn’t help but wonder how the course would hold up.
Rose’s winning score of 1-over 281 is a testament to just how tough the new and improved Merion can be. Having said that, Tiger Woods was right to complain about the sadistic pin placements USGA executive director Mike Davis used throughout the tournament. The USGA had an excuse the first couple of days when more rain came Thursday morning and pins had to go on higher areas of Merion’s undulating greens.
Even LaRue Temple, the Merion caddy who did Merion caddies past and present proud with the job he did on the bag of low amateur Michael Kim, noted the “nasty pin placements.” He had likely seen all of them at one time or another, but probably not all on the same day.
One area the rain probably stiffened Merion’s defenses was the rough. It lived up to its name — it was rough. It might have been even rougher for the 1971 Open at Merion.
At the media day in late April, Davis predicted that you would see more shots go out of bounds at this Open than you would at other sites. He wasn’t kidding.
Sergio Garcia’s golf balls seemed drawn to Golf House Road by some unseen force. He went OB off the tee at 14 and 15 in his first round, then OB on 15 leading to a snowman, and then went OB twice on 15 in a thirdround disaster that added up to 10. The guy finished 15-over for the tournament and was 10-over on those two tries at 15 alone.
Jason Dufner arrived at the 15th 5-under for the day in his final round before going OB off the tee. He left the hole 2-under for his round after a triple-bogey seven.
Tiger sailed one OB off the tee on the par-5 second in the final round on his way to a snowman. Steve Stricker, off in the next-to-last group Sunday, hit two shots OB on the second. His eight was hard-earned.
The other concern going into this U.S. Open was the logistics of staging a huge event like this — and make no mistake about it, this is a big event — in such a cramped area.
And even the naysayers would have to admit, that tournament officials, the club members, the police and all the other security people involved and the small army of volunteers pulled it off. And none of it could have happened without the cooperation of Haverford College.
Popular ESPN.com cur- mudgeon Rick Reilly grumbled about the media being forced to interview players a half-mile (gasp) away from the media center. Many in the media seemed obsessed with the fact that the locker room for the players was at West Course where the driving range was. Of course, the days when golf writers got their best stuff by hanging out in the locker room with the players are long, long gone.
It wasn’t easy for the gallery to move around the golf course. The double-crosses in front of the second and fifth tees and the third and sixth tees were particular choke points.
But there were some improvements from the 1971 and ’81 Opens. The big grandstand at 17 turned an area that was tough to get to in previous Opens into a mini-stadium. And that tough par-3 proved to be a worthy stage. The image of the grandstand erupting when Phil Mickelson birdied the hole late Saturday will be standard fare in remembrances of this Open. Not to mention the roar touched off by young pro Shawn Stefani’s ace there in the final round.
The par-3 ninth hole always had two teeing areas, but the one to the right of the eighth green was abandoned in favor of a grandstand. And the area along the fence on seven and eight was opened up to spectators and proved to be a popular spot to watch players attack those two little par-4s.
Was it perfect? No. When you try to pull off something like this, do things go wrong? Always.
Let’s leave it to Mickelson to summarize the week. Remember he said all of this probably 20 minutes after finishing as a U.S. Open runner-up for a sixth time.
“The people here have been fabulous,” Mickelson said. “To look at the members and what they’ve done and the homeowners, what they’ve sacrificed to allow this tournament to come back is pretty cool. The way the community has wanted this and supports this tournament, more so than just about any place we’ve ever been.
“We’ve played U.S. Opens at great golf courses where the membership voted not to have us back. Here they want us back, they’re opening their homes to the USGA for infrastructure. Coming out when they can’t really see too much, coming out to be a part of the tournament. It’s great the way the city of Philadelphia has supported this tournament. I hope we have a chance to come back.”