Merion...Rain Rain Go Away, Come Back Again Some Other Day (or Week preferably)

Rain continues to plague The Open at Merion. The golf course is special and continues to hold up to the best golfers in the world despite being softened by the heavy rains. This really does reinforce what many of us that love Merion thought, the design of the golf course is wonderful and will once again identify the best golfer in the world. 

And Merion absolutely requires the golfer to show their shot making skill, course management, and mental toughness. There will be adversity and the ability of the golfer to face adversity intelligently is critical to success. Trouble abounds and there is OB everywhere. I suspect that there has never been a course that held a Major Championship that had more holes with out of bounds in play. The winner of this event may well be the golfer that saves a bogey from becoming a double or triple.

Not surprisingly, Matt Shaffer (Merion's Chief Grass Grower) and his staff have done a spectacular job of readying the golf course through these very trying conditions. Hey Mother Nature, enough already. If it ever stops raining the course will dry quickly, it drains very well and Matt will get those greens nice and firm. Maybe some day the USGA will allow tarping of the greens. We cover baseball infields, football fields, and soccer fields, why not greens on the golf course? If they had tarped the greens at Merion, what would the scores have been like today?

Some more trivia:

In 1981, after the Open, I moved into the 3rd floor of the clubhouse where they had some employee housing. And while we had our own bathroom, we also had direct access to the 3rd floor of the locker room. Many of you have heard of the marvelous showers at Merion and I can assure you that I used them often and that they are second only to the golf course at Merion.

On Thursday of the 1981 Open, I got a call from Richie Valentine to meet him at the small putting green, the one next to the golf shop. Upon arriving there, Richie introduced me to George Fazio, George put his glasses on and looked me up and down, shook my hand and turned around and walked away. Richie just shook his head and laughed. Years, later, when I told Tom Fazio about the introduction, he just roared.

The flagpole at Merion is one more reminder that Merion is a golf club. The pole was positioned to be an aiming point from both the 10th and 18th tee shots.

Missing the Open, Rollers, Dune Grass

Wednesday is my favorite day to be at the Open. The  contestants are finalizing their strategies and as they practice you can see how they're thinking about playing. They practice the shots that they think they will have and are fine tuning things. I've always found that very interesting.

Merion is a golf course that you have to think your way around. So I think that the players that do well will be, obviously the ones staying out of the rough but ultimately, the ones that have the best course management. A certain type of mental toughness will be required of the players to handle repeated decisions on each tee of what club to hit to those narrow landing areas.

In 1981, Richie Valentine had me pick up 18 rollers from the Merion Cricket Club. The rollers were 4 feet wide and were not real heavy and were never used on the course. But they were placed at the players' exit at each green. Richie Valentine, Merion's Superintendent, wanted to "get into the player's heads." So every time a player walked off a green they had to pass by or almost step over a green's roller.

The Dune Grass in the bunkers at Merion that was refreshed prior to the 1981 US Open came from Atlantic City Country Club. Doug Fraser, Leo Fraser's* son, brought it up to Merion for us to fill in some thin spots in the bunkers. Valentine would pick the locations to plant the grass clumps by gathering up some small stones and sticks and throwing them up in the air. Wherever they landed we planted clumps. It was as random and as natural as you could get.

Thought of the day: Keep an eye out for the third hole. This may be one of the finest uphill par 3s in the world.

Unfortunately, I'm not at the Open on my favorite day because Dick Zokol and I are working on the renovation at the Presidio Golf Course.

The 10th hole at Presidio Golf Course

* Leo Fraser was the owner of Atlantic City Country Club and presided over the PGA when the organization split into the PGA Tour and the PGA of America.

David Graham's Wicker from his 1981 US Open Victory

In 1981 after David Graham had won the US Open, Richie Valentine, Merion's Superintendent, had me ship a wicker to David Graham. The article below appeared in one of the Philadelphia newspapers after the Open.

Years later, I got to know David a little bit and I was able to tell him about sending his wicker to him. It wasn't much longer after that, that David called me about getting Guerrio D'Achille to make some wickers for a 36 hole golf course that he and Gary Panks were building in Australia. Ultimately the club chose not to use wickers but it gave me a chance to visit about Merion with David again.

In the winter of 1980-81, I learned how to make wickers when we made a new set of wickers for The Open. The wickers were made from rattan that Guerrio softened to the right consistency with a steam cleaner. We used an 8 foot tall aluminum flag pole turned upside down, moving the ferrel to the bottom and attaching the basket to the top and a common funnel snugged the bottom of the basket to the pole. Wickers are in Crimson and Tangerine. And remember wickers don't show which way the wind blows.

Probably more interesting though is that the old wickers were all different heights. The set that was in use up until the Open ranged in height from 6.5 feet tall to 8 feet tall. The wickers were picked up every evening to prevent theft and replaced each morning as we did course setup. And as the guy that did that course setup most days, I created optical illusions as to the hole position on the greens by using different length poles for different effects. A short pin in the front of the green looked to be much deeper.

Everything about Merion was and is just a little bit different and more than a little bit original, hopefully this Open will be too.

Pray for good weather this week!

The 1981 US Open at Merion with a Chevy Nova driving on the Greens

If I told you that a car spun out on a green and drove across another before the start of the 3rd round of a US Open, would you be surprised? Would you be even more surprised to hear that at Merion during the 1981 US Open, that a car spun out on the 2nd green then drove backwards on the 2nd fairway, drove between the 2nd and 5th tees onto the 10th fairway across the 10th green through the bunker across the 2nd tee and turned onto Ardmore Avenue never to be seen again? The truth is indeed stranger than fiction. It happened.

Each morning as I drove to the club to prepare for the Championship, I would sneak through security on my way to the golf course maintenance building taking a different route each morning. I wasn't doing this just to irritate the security staff but to make a point that their perimeter and access control were lacking. Ardmore Avenue runs through the golf course and Golf House Road runs along part of the "Back Five."

On Saturday morning, as I was driving through a heavy rain for the third round of the Championship, I noticed that there was no guard at the gate that goes to the 2nd green from Ardmore Avenue and that the chain was down. When I got to the maintenance building, my thoughts went towards that morning's preparations as Richie Valentine and I adjusted the morning's plans for the staff to deal with the rainfall and I really didn't think about the gate at number 2 until as I was making my rounds checking on the staff twenty minutes later.

Wanted for Criminal Trespassing, 1981 US Open

By that time a Chevy Nova had driven onto the course, spun out on the back of the 2nd green, went down the 2nd fairway onto the 10th fairway, across the 10th green through the bunker across the 2nd tee and turned onto Ardmore Avenue. The driver didn't know how lucky he was because he was being chased by Dominic (Loco) Crespo. And if Dominic had caught him, he would have had a tough time of it. By the way, Dominic's brother Miguel Crespo still works at Merion these 32 years later.

The car had spun out on the back of the 2nd green and skimmed the turf off of the green in a half donut within a few feet of Saturdays pin position. Being the ever energetic Assistant Superintendent, I asked Richie if I should topdress the spot. Richie told me to just spread some green's clippings over it after it was mowed and that we'd move the pin to the front. And that was it.

Another Richie Valentine story. Do you notice anything different about this plaque? No, well take a close look at the ROBERT TYRE JONES, JR. section. Now do you notice that it's raised? What name do you think might have originally been on the plaque? How about Robert Trent Jones?

Richie told me the story about how the club had this plaque made and took him out to the 11th tee to see it mounted on the rock. Richie said "The plaques beautiful but that's not his name." Thus the raised portion of the plaque.

Memories of the Last OPEN at Merion

( courtesy of Matt Shaffer, Photo by Dave McDonald)

As a tribute to Merion Golf Club, I will reflect on my memories of the behind the scenes events that happened far from the television and press coverage during the 1981 U.S. Open. In 1980 and 1981, I was the Assistant Superintendent at Merion. Please keep in mind that these are my memories and they may be slightly flawed based on a misspent youth and adult career in the golf business. All of this from the only man west of the Susquehanna River that can make a wicker.

Let me start with a fun one, that every golfer has an opinion about, pin placements. Even in those days, Merion's resistance to scoring was being questioned. With that in mind, it came down to how firm and fast the greens were, how tough the pin placements were, and how tough the rough was. Fairway widths were little changed for the Open with the widths ranging from 26 to 32 yards wide in the landing areas. So, to us on the golf course maintenance side of things, with our fearless leader Richie Valentine (Merion's 3rd Superintendent who took over from his father who had taken over from Flynn) at the helm, we thought that we were the last defense of protecting the course and club from an assault. We considered it a personal affront that some player, no matter how great, would tarnish the reputation of Merion.

Well, the course's defenses were compromised by the weather with heavy rain falling on Monday softening the greens and I remember very clearly Richie Valentine's diatribe about how easy the pin placements had been on both Thursday and Friday, which had led to low scores. Richie was not bashful and could elucidate with the best of them and he had done so at the club's US Open committee meeting (held in a motor coach in the parking lot) on Friday afternoon. The General Chairman, Bill Kent,  ran military like rap up sessions at the end of each day. At the end of the meeting he asked if anyone else had anything to add. Much to the chagrin of the Mr. Kent, Richie Valentine said "When are you going to tell the USGA to set some tough pin placements because if you don't then I'll set them myself." At that point the committee erupted in cheers and one of the women, I think it was Mrs. Bone, said "Why, you tell him Richie, we have tougher pin placements for the ladies member guest" and her comments were accurate. Merion's members were more apt to complain about a banal course setup than an interesting, tough setup; they knew golf, still do for that matter.

The setup that Richie was complaining about was being dictated by one of golf's all time great characters, P.J. Boatwright, Jr. of the USGA. I remember being on the 17th green on Saturday morning with Billy Buchanon (USGA Championship Agronomist) measuring green speeds with Richie Valentine watching us when P.J. walked onto the green puffing his pipe and said to Richie "I understand that you think that the pin placements have been too easy" to which Richie responded "You're damn right P.J." With that P.J. puffed on his pipe and said "I think you'll find them a bit more to your liking today." and we did.

More to come:

A Chevy Nova drives across two greens on Saturday morning of the Open
How fast did 17 green get?
David Graham and his Wicker

Merion and the Retro US OPEN

Let me start out by telling you that I love Merion Golf Club. I grew up a mile or so away from the course and worked there in 1980 and 1981 as Richie Valentine's Assistant. That was a special time for me as I had just finished school and we had the Open coming. Richie was the best. His love of Merion, where he had followed his father as Superintendent (his father, Joe Valentine had taken over from William Flynn), was pure.

Richie's philosophy about golf course maintenance was an eye opener for me. All he really cared about was how the game was played and maintenance was planned to accommodate and enhance the golf experience. Well, sadly, Richie is gone but his spirit lives on with Matt Shaffer, the present Superintendent at Merion. Matt is to say the least an odd and sometimes awe inspiring mix of the old and the new. Matt manages the golf course in a spartan, minimalist fashion in some regards and at the highest levels in other regards. It really is just so interesting to experience his concepts on the golf course and undoubtedly these ideas would be good for the game of golf if adopted by more courses. Matt's ideas and the club's resolve will produce an Open that may be more like an Open of the olden days but with many of the modern techniques. A Richie Valentine quote that Matt fully understands- "Everything Old wasn't Bad and Everything New isn't Good."

Check out this interview with him and you will see what I'm talking about:

Matt Shaffer/Merlon/Golfdom Video

Let's just pray that it doesn't rain on the 2013 US OPEN at Merion.

Good Luck Matt and Merion!

The First Tee Feels Good

I've been at the Golf Industry Show this week. As I was riding up the elevator today, a gentleman was telling his friend about how they had raised one million dollars for the First Tee program. He was elated and speaking loudly enough that everybody heard him. And mere moments before that, I had just finished a breakfast meeting with an industry veteran who has been involved in some of the finest golf projects in the country. He felt that First Tee was a complete and utter failure at growing the game. And then later in the day I had a similar conversation with a Golf Course Architect friend; his opinion was that First Tee was a failure at growing the game. Well, this caused me to remember that The First Tee's goal is not to grow the game of golf. Let me repeat that, The First Tee's goal is not to grow the game of golf. 

Here is The First Tee's mission:

Our Mission: To impact the lives of young people by providing educational programs that build character, instill life-enhancing values and promote healthy choices through the game of golf.

And while The First Tee's mission is a noble and worthy of support, it's main purpose is not growing the game of golf. Perhaps, we should, as an industry focus on growing the game of golf. In my post about PRODUCT PLACEMENT, I look at using product placement to expose young people to the game of golf. I'm sure that there are other good ideas out there as well. But until we admit to ourselves that The First Tee program's main focus is not to create as many new golfers as possible, we will just keep sliding backwards.

Golf and the Housing Market

About a decade and a half ago, I heard something interesting about housing and golf. What I had heard was that home buyers valued and were willing to pay as much for passive open space frontage and as they would for golf frontage. Well, it seems if developers have learned their lesson, albeit a little bit late. This article from The Herald-Tribune in Sarasota FL published after the NAHB International Builders' Show in Las Vegas clearly does not bode well for new golf courses as real estate amenities.

The Landing's community in Sarasota has more than four miles of walking trails and a nature trail. Developers are finding more interest in such amenities.

HERALD-TRIBUNE ARCHIVE / 2012 / THOMAS BENDER

By Harold Bubil

Published: Friday, January 25, 2013 at 1:00 a.m.

Last Modified: Thursday, January 24, 2013 at 9:04 p.m.

LAS VEGAS - Although the number of houses specifically being developed for those 55 and over is expected to grow by more than one fifth this year, at least one amenity will not be prevalent: Golf.

According to a survey by housing groups, interest in golf courses by baby boomers and others has waned and, for developers, new golf courses do noteconomic sense.

"Golf courses are expensive to build and maintain, and they take a lot of time to play," said W. Don Whyte, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders' 50+ Housing Council.

In their place, developers are installing walking trails, wellness centers and other active amenities for a new breed of senior that is healthier and will likely live longer than his or her parents.

At developments in Utah, where Whyte lives, walking trails and vegetable gardens are proving to be a "tremendously popular amenity. You compare that to the investment you have to make for a golf course," he said, "and it is astronomical the difference in cost."

Developers in Southwest Florida are also reacting to the changing trends. In November, builder Taylor Morrison is planning to expand its Esplanade community in Manatee County with a pair of amenity centers, tennis courts, a restaurant, walking trails and a 6,000-square-foot wellness center.

It is also, however, planning a new 18-hole golf course at Esplanade.

The changes come as experts predict a 22 percent jump in the number of senior housing units in 2013, according to statistics released at the 2013 International Builders Show here.

But the "active adult" community is not a one-size-fits-all proposition, either.

In the Lakewood Ranch area, for example, Rosedale Golf & Country Club is adding a new phase but has abandoned plans to add nine additional golf holes in favor of more houses.

"Golf courses are not doing that well right now," said developer Pat Hogan, of the Hunt Group.

That said, high-end golf clubs such as Concession and the Founders Club, in Sarasota, have reported renewed interest and increased memberships -- perhaps signalling that golfers prefer existing, tried courses to new ones.

Meanwhile, walking and jogging trails, along with simple sidewalks and park areas, are the amenities most likely to attract both baby boomers and seniors, said Paul Emrath, the NAHB's vice president of survey and housing-policy research.

"These are also the two most popular amenities among younger home buyers. The older the buyers, however, the more likely they are to prefer a community offering an outdoor maintenance service," said Emrath.

"It's also interesting to see that many of the baby boomers and seniors who buy homes prefer to live in suburbs and rural areas, rather than in central cities."

The growth in construction of 55-plus housing units is expected to continue as the share of U.S. households in that age group -- now 14 percent -- increases significantly through 2020. NAHB is projecting 74,300 more units in 2013, and another 20 percent rise, to 89,071, in 2014.

"For the longest time, there wasn't even a reason to look into 55-plus housing, as many consumers weren't able to sell their existing homes at a fair price," said Whyte, of South Jordan, Utah. "That is beginning to change as the overall housing market continues to improve."

Skiing's Lesson for Golf's Governing Bodies

The International Ski Federation (FIS) has done the unthinkable...changed an equipment policy in the face of controversy. Maybe the USGA, PGA Tour and the R&A can learn something from the FIS.

To put this in simple terms, the FIS changed their Giant Slalom ski specifications, taking them back 20 or 25 years in technology. Does this sound like something the powers of golf should pay attention to? Now, the FIS did this to help reduce injuries and whether or not it's going to do that remains to be seen.  But the FIS did what they thought was right, period end of story, despite the fact that the world class competitive skiers and manufacturers in general may not have been pleased with the decision.

I suspect that the FIS could care less what equipment and technologies non competitive skiers use to pursue improvement in their sport. And the USGA and R&A shouldn't spend any time worrying about what technologies that the 99.99% of golfers utilize to increase their enjoyment of the game.

Golf and the challenges that technology have placed upon our sport aren't safety issues but they have caused the vast majority of our storied golf venues to become virtually obsolete and outdated for championship golf. Something needs to be done with the golf ball and the USGA and R&A need to show some intestinal fortitude and begin to protect the game at its highest level.

Golf's Ground Game versus Minimalist Aesthetics

Ground Attack Encouraged

A Suny Zokol Golf Design Master Plan Rendering

Faux links playability has taken over pop golf design culture. When you see some wild looking golf course with fescue waving in the air, you just believe that you will be getting a links experience. A true links experience is one that not only accepts the ground game but often calls for or even demands it to gain an advantage, while penalizing the air attack with some degree of regularity.

A Suny Zokol Golf Design Master Plan calling for the Aerial Attack

And it's always been interesting to me that a minimalist and or links looking golf course is generally assumed to be firm and fast and receptive to the ground game, purely on how it looks. Minimalist golf and the ground game are not necessarily mutually inclusive. There are many examples of great looking rugged golf courses that show all of the signs of being links like in playability but the design has greens perched up in the air and running approach shots simply cannot be played...these greens still require an aerial or conventional approach. Mind you, these course may be great but are they as receptive to the ground game as they could be or should be if they are purported to be links?

Every time you raise another green up to that dramatic site as you route the course you become less accommodating to the ground game. I don't think that we should avoid all elevated or "up" green sites but we shouldn't default to the easy drama every time either.

So the next time you play a purported links course, think about the courses receptiveness to running ground shots. Is it links golf or is it faux links?

Renderings by Maren Suny