09
Even though it remains relatively short by modern
standards, Marzolf believes Merion will test US Open
competitors to the full. “It’s tougher than the scorecard
makes it look!” he says. “The yardage on the golf course
is very lopsided between the two nines, because of the
configuration of the routing. The back nine is 3,253
yards, par 34, with no par fives. And in that, you have
a 115 yard par three! But the front nine is long by
anybody’s standards, at more than 3,700 yards.”
The course’s two par fives both appear in the first four
holes, and the central run of holes, by contrast, features
most of Merion’s strong selection of short par fours.
Marzolf says this section of the golf course helps make
Merion what it is. “One key characteristic of Merion is that
the long holes are extremely long, and the short holes are
very short,” he says. “There’s not so much in the middle,
which is one of the things that makes it such a great test.
“The shorter holes are in the middle of the golf course.
A lot of players will hit irons off the tee on seven–the
fairway is within six paces of the out of bounds. The
eight may be a lay-up and a wedge, and the tenth can be
driveable. We rebuilt the tee on that tenth hole and made
it larger, because a lot of players were hitting irons, and
there were more divots on the tee. On the ninth hole, we
basically rebuilt all the tees they had, because they would
have blocked the view of the water feature in front of the
green. As we moved the tee back, we had to lower the
other tees–the members’ tee was lowered by about eleven
feet. We had to do a lot of earthwork to make it look old-
timey and like nothing was done. The impact of those
two very long par threes is very important for the course’s
defence. Merion’s par threes have great variety–you have
the ninth hole at 236 yards, the thirteenth at 115, and
then the seventeenth at 246! The seventeenth is one of the
toughest par threes in golf. We lengthened it substantially,
but we had to regrade all the tees to be able to get that new
tee in. When the club saw what the yardage did to that
hole, I think it gave them the confidence to go forward
with the rest of the project. Those big par threes test
golfers’ ability to hit long approaches, there are fewer of
those today on the par fours due to the new ball.”
Merion’s tenth is an interesting hole, in that in its
current form, it was not part of the course’s original
routing. Architect Hugh Wilson had the tenth green
Image courtesy USGA/John Mummert
