panchamukha blog: The Mighty Merion

Looking at Phil Mickelson as he played the back nine, he seemed exhausted. The looks on his face screamed agony and he just wants to be done with his round because Merion has conquered him. Hell, he is not alone by any means. Merion dominated the best players in the golf world and that is how the United States Golf Association (USGA) wants it to be. Thankfully, Merion towed the fine line of being overly difficult perfectly. When the week started, people like Ernie Els, expected the scoring to be low. The Pennsylvania course took in a great deal of rain over the week slowing down the course. We have seen in past majors that it gives the golfers the ability to go very low. On Thursday, the rain interfered with play as they had two delays plus pushing a majority of the start times back plus the scores did not really reflect Merion winning. The next day would be completely different and no one was safe.

Billy Horschel shooting a 67 on Friday will probably be forgotten, but it should be remembered as one of the more impressive things of the whole weekend. The average score on Friday was 75.17, five over par. Famed golf writer Dan Jenkins tweeted out 'casualties' of the second day with many great players firing numbers around 77 to 83. It became the polar opposite of what Thursday looked like and it only became worse as the weekend dragged on. Naturally, golfers do not like looking like us on any golf course and Zach Johnson decided to complain about it. He took shots at the USGA and clearly has no interest in being a member when his career is done. Johnson sounds like a teenager who thinks a history test is too hard and it furthers their anger with that teacher. He comes off horribly here sounding like a crybaby. The course was hard, but this is not Winged Foot where the USGA lost control of the course like Mark Richt loses control of Georgia football. Johnson wailed about the course after there were players like Horschel who shot three under the par. It was not like we had a leaderboard featuring the leader at three over. If Johnson does not like the courses the USGA chooses for the U.S. Open, he should sit this tournament out and let others play who would dream of playing in golf's national championship. While Johnson missed the cut, the other professionals tried to beat the course that looked like Danny Green in the NBA Finals. Honestly, while there were bad moments from different golfers, Saturday could not have been a funner round. There were multiple players dropping birdies and the leaderboard shifted multiple times on Saturday afternoon with gorgeous conditions. Yes, the last five holes played the hardest ever in U.S. Open history, but it definitely made it more entertaining. A great what if from the weekend is Luke Donald whom ended the Saturday round making bogey and double bogey on the final two holes after being in the lead heading to 17. If Donald makes par on both those holes, is he the Englishman with the victory and not Justin Rose? Speaking of Rose, he won the tournament by playing Merion the best on Sunday. He had five birdies and five bogeys, but overall played an even par round to take the tournament. No matter how bad the conditions are, isn't the one thing you want from a major tournament winner is they played the best round Sunday? It definitely leaves the viewer with a sense of fulfillment that the right man won the tournament and the course had nothing to do with it. If golfers like Johnson think Merion is bad, wait until Pinehurst next year in North Carolina in the middle of June where the weather temperatures will be well over 80 degrees, the rough will be heavy and the last time the U.S. Open was at Pinehurst, a sectional qualifier from New Zealand won the Open. Things will not get easier next year and that is exactly how the USGA wants it.Charlie.
Source:http://snotap.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-mighty-merion.html

The Mighty Merion Images