Merion puts game back in the ’burbs

When Jack Nicklaus said that Merion “acre for acre may be the best test of golf in the world”, he certainly wasn’t considering the course from the point of view of tournament logistics.

Taking the US Open Championship to this classic layout to Philadelphia’s leafy suburb of Ardmore rather than to The Country Club at Brookline to mark the centenary of Francis Ouimet’s historic 1913 win is a bit like the R&A snubbing Muirfield to take The Open back to 6,500-yard Prestwick.

With a golfing footprint just 111 acres and only 125 acres on site, Merion’s East Course is so claustrophobic that considerable imagination and planning has gone in to bringing the US Open back to the Philadelphia area for a fourth time and the first since 1981.