The Merion Mystique: Wicker Basket Standards
05 days ago
by Chris Chaney
in Golf
**The US Open returns to historic Merion Golf Club this week for the 113th edition of the red, white and blue’s national championship. Leading up to the tournament, we’ll go into a little further detail rediscovering some of the neat memories, quirks and characteristic of this Hugh Wilson design outside of Philadelphia.**
The wicker basket standard and the US Open Trophy, both up for grabs this week.
Merion Golf Club is dripping with history and there is no greater distinguishing characteristic of the 117-year old course than the wicker basket standards (it would be incorrect to label them as flagsticks beings that there are no flags) that adorn each of the club’s 36 holes and putting greens.
The origin of the wicker basket standards nor the reason behind their use at Merion have been all that well known before this week. When the course was designed in the late 19th century, common flags sat atop each standard, a practice that became the norm in most golf courses around the world.
One of the many misconceptions about the history of the club is that its designer, Hugh Wilson, traveled to the British Iles scouting courses in England and Scotland to draw inspiration for his design of Merion. In fact, ship manifests show that Wilson did not travel to the Iles until after he had already designed the course.
However, when he returned stateside, Wilson would have undoubtedly had seen the use of wicker basket standards throughout courses in the Old Country.
As the story goes, the inspiration for the wickers came from shepherds who would keep their lunch in a wicker-like basket atop their staffs to keep their herds from eating it. In a nod to the shepherds whose animals created much of the bunkering and land used for early golf courses, these wicker basket standards were used.
A possible solution to the mystery offered by Wayne S. Morton of the USGA could be that Wilson, a prominent amateur, returned from his trip overseas and encouraged Flynn to develop a similar kind of wicker standard. Flynn would apply for design patents for his wicker standards on August 7, 1915, which would be granted on February 29, 1916.
Given the stringent amateur rules at the time, Wilson would not have been able to make money off of anything golf-related and retain his amateur status.
Flynn’s patent application.
The wicker basket standards are believed to have been put into play during that summer of 1915 after Flynn had filed for his patent. A newspaper account from Philadelphia’s Evening Public Ledger from July of 1915 said, “The new hole pins at Merion have been the subject of much favorable comment…Instead of the usual flags, which, when a head wind is blowing are invisible, wooden pins, with alternate stripes of black and white, and large, wicker, pear shaped tops, are used.”
The standards basket’s are painted red on the outgoing, or front, nine and orange on the incoming, or back, nine. Who makes the wicker baskets remains a mystery, even currently.
“I’ve been at this job for 12 years,” Andy Mutch, curator at Merion Golf Club, said. “And I don’t know.”
Each evening, the baskets are taken out of their cups and stored under lock and key. Presently, the only way to purchase a Merion wicker basket is to doll out a grand on eBay for a 1981 model.
While the baskets are a unique touch to an idiosyncratic club, the challenge presented by Merion Golf Club’s East Course, on which the US Open will be contested this week, is par for the course.
The use of flags shows the player the wind direction and strength, allowing them to adjust accordingly. However, the baskets do no such thing, which seems consistent with the club’s old-timey feel. For example, the club does not have yardage markers anywhere on the grounds and range finders are illegal.
The baskets will undoubtedly be shown prominently on the telecast and live on as one of the indelible marks of the course and event.
The Merion Mystique: Ben Hogan’s 1-iron
06 days ago
by Chris Chaney
in Golf
**The US Open returns to historic Merion Golf Club this week for the 113th edition of the red, white and blue’s national championship. Leading up to the tournament, we’ll go into a little further detail rediscovering some of the neat memories, quirks and characteristic of this Hugh Wilson design outside of Philadelphia.**
Hy Peskin’s iconic photo of Ben Hogan at Merion
Perhaps the most iconic photograph in the history of American golf was snapped by Hy Peskin on the 72nd hole of the 1950 US Open from behind Ben Hogan as the Hawk hit a 1-iron into the final hole of the tournament needing a par four to get into a playoff.
Even more famous than the photograph itself is the backstory of the man featured.
Long considered one of the most standoffish men in the game, Hogan was injured in a car wreck 16 months prior to the 1950 US Open when he and his wife, Valerie, were struck by a Greyhound Bus. Hogan threw himself in front of his wife in an attempt to save her life, but in doing so actually saved his as well.
The bus smashed the Hogan’s car and pushed the steering wheel through the driver’s seat. Far from unscathed, Hogan suffered a broken pelvis, collar bone, left ankle, crushed rib and had to have his main blood flow tied off to keep him from bleeding out and dying. Following the accident, Hogan was told he may not be able to walk again, much less play golf at an elite level.
With legs routinely wrapped in bandages and still in recovery from the accident, Hogan braved the Philadelphia heat and walked 36 holes on Saturday June 10. According to Joe Posnanski’s fantastic feature on the photographer, Hogan nearly collapsed on the 12th hole and nearly withdrew on the 13th. The Hawk was in such pain and anguish that his playing competitor, Cary Middlecoff, marked Hogan’s ball on the green and picked it out of the cup for him.
When Hogan reached the 72nd fairway, he pulled the famous 1-iron in order to use the loft (or lack thereof) to play a shot that wouldn’t require as much energy. From there, Heskin moved behind Hogan and, again according to Posnanski’s account, snapped the lone photo he took all day.
The result of the shot in question is still uncertain to this day. In fact, which club he used to hit the shot is often mistaken because of an error Hogan later admitted to making in his book. In the book, Hogan wrote that he hit a 2-iron, when in fact he hit the famous 1-iron, which he would later confirm.
According to some, Hogan’s shot found the putting surface, some 40 feet from the hole while others, including Sirius/XM PGA Tour Radio’s Matt Adams, contest that the approach went over the green and Hogan needed to get up and down for par.
What is indisputable is that Hogan was able to get down in four strokes, forcing a three-way, 18-hole playoff the following day.
During that playoff, Hogan would not have the shoes nor the famous 1-iron at his disposal as they were stolen following the completion of regulation. The club went missing for some 33 years until a club collector named Bobby Farino bought a hodge-podge set of clubs at the 1983 Players Championship.
In that bag, Farino found the iconic MacGregor 1-iron with an unmistakable wear mark on the sweet spot of the club. Farino gave the club to Lanny Watkins to take to Hogan to identify the club. When Hogan inspected the club, he said, “It’s good to see my old friend back.”
The club is now in the possession of the USGA and routinely is on display at their museum in Far Hills, NJ, but is on site at Merion this week. For the first time on Tuesday, the aforementioned Matt Adams took the club back to the site of it’s most famous strike.
Book Review: An American Caddie in St. Andrews
03 weeks ago
by Chris Chaney
in Golf
An American Caddie in St. Andrews: Growing Up, Girls, and Looping on the Old Course
From taking tequila shots with Paula Creamer, to evenings spent in the garden with his Uncle Ken, Oliver Horovitz’s An American Caddie in St. Andrews is a must-read for anyone who has been to or has dreams of going to the Home of Golf.
A first-person memoir of his formative years following graduation from high school, Horovitz takes the reader along on his personal journey beginning with his gap year abroad at St. Andrews University to beyond his graduation day from Harvard University with a degree in film, all along keeping St. Andrews and the caddie shack in the forefront of his, and the readers’, mind.
Horovitz weaves a narrative mainly set in the old grey town of St. Andrews, Scotland, a city the author visited frequently in his youth. Owning a caddie pedigree and a 1.8 handicap, Ollie fits right in the golf-crazy town where the game was born.
Finishing his gap year at St. Andrews and in need of summer job, Horovitz enrolls in the caddie training program, earning most of his experience through trainee slogs around the Old Course.
The reader is taken inside the notoriously gruff and unwelcoming fraternity of Old Course caddies. Through diligent work and hard lessons in proper caddie decorum, Horovitz slowly but surely begins to gain favor and acceptance in shack, eventually caving into the kind of behavior that most caddies have become known for.
Following summers looping around the Old, Horovitz takes the reader back Stateside as he studies film at one of the most prestigious colleges in the world, yet the feeling relayed from Horovitz matches that of the reader: anxious to get back to St. Andrews.
Understanding the rapport and kinship that he has already formed between reader and the shack, not to mention the other characters (apt description), Horovitz does a good job of keeping his Harvard tales brief and expounding upon the days and nights he spends in St. Andrews.
The easy-to-read nature and we’ve-all-been-there feelings that Horovitz elegantly explains helps us to be engulfed into Horovitz’s world. We’re there with him on the bench in the shack, on the pier with the girl and in the cab home after a night of drinking. We’re rooting for him all the way.
Horovitz managed to document and publish an account of his greatest adventure, and most of all, in a world where people’s lives often get in the way of their dreams, An American Caddie chronicles Horovitz’s story of his dreams getting in the way of his life.
Sergio Was Right, He Was the Victim
01 month ago
by Chris Chaney
in Golf
USA Today Sports / Brad Barr
Sergio Garcia didn’t do himself any favors this weekend at the Players Championship as he ignited a media feud with eventual winner Tiger Woods following a misunderstanding on Saturday afternoon.
Playing with Tiger on Saturday in the final group after leading the tournament through 36 holes, Garcia found himself in the middle of the second fairway while Woods toiled in the trees following a hooked tee shot at the par-5.
273 yards from the putting surface (Woods was 272, according to Shot Tracker), Garcia was away as marshalls helped Woods clear out a path for Tiger’s second shot from the pine straw some 50 yards away from where Garcia stood over his shot. As Sergio prepared to hit, Woods unknowingly pulled a fairway wood from his bag, which ignited the crowd surrounding him as they expected him to take a shot at the green.
What transpired is yet another skeleton to add to Sergio’s closet.
“Well, obviously, Tiger was on the left, and it was my shot to hit,” Garcia said in the television interview. “He moved all the crowd that he needed to move. I waited for that. I wouldn’t say that he didn’t see that I was ready, but you do have a feel when the other guy is going to hit, and right as I was in the top of my backswing, I think he must have pulled like a 5-wood or a 3-wood and obviously everybody started screaming.
“So that didn’t help very much. But it was unfortunate because — I mean I might have hit it in there if nothing happens. You never know. But if I hit a good shot there and maybe make a birdie, it gets my day started in a bit of a different way.”
It would be difficult to believe that Woods was able to see Sergio given the density of the crowd, his position and where Garcia was playing from, nearly 50 yards away. Perhaps equally as interesting were the comments both gave following the round considering the video evidence.
In the video, you can see that Woods did not make an effort to look through or past the crowd to see where Garcia was in his routine as he pulled a fairway wood from his bag. Similarly, it would appear that while Garcia was over the ball, he had not begun his takeaway when the crowd began to cheer Woods’ decision.
While both parties could be blamed for lack of awareness, it didn’t help that the issue was brought up publicly when Sergio gave the interview to Steve Sands of the Golf Channel prior to the resumption of play. Woods said after play was called for the day that he was aware of Garcia’s comments and noted, “(it’s) not really surprising that he’s complaining about something.”
The video evidenced fault on both sides, but also that Woods was cognizant and aware of Garcia hitting as he can be seen trying to shush the crowd and pointing in Sergio’s direction as if to let the crowd know his playing competitor was hitting and to quiet down.
Their contentious relationship likely was the reason Woods left his usual script of political correctness and snapped back at Garcia through the media. In this instance, Garcia had a right to be upset that there was noise during his swing, but incorrect in assessing the blame on Woods.
Over the next day 24 hours, sides were taken publicly as Garcia’s past were brought up and his reputation as a whiner was restored. A historic and compelling final round later, Garcia spiraled fantastically on the island green 17th. Despite handling the tough breaks admirably, Garcia made a comment towards the end of the media session that fanned the fire once again, albeit it was the fourth time he was asked a Tiger-related question in the scrum following his round.
“It sounds like I was the bad guy here,” Garcia said when asked if there was anything he would do differently with the dustup the day before. “I was the victim. I don’t have any regrets of anything.”
And truth be told, he’s right. Garcia is the victim. He was the victim of a poorly timed club pull that caused a rustle in the crowd. The fact that it was Tiger Woods pulling the club made the story all the more juicy, but the result of the bad break affected Garcia.
You won’t find much sympathy for Sergio from many golf fans, especially those on site who heckled Garcia and at the 17th, substituted “get in the water” for the usual “get in the hole” along with hearing fans clap when his shot found the water. His reputation precedes him and ruffles many the wrong way.
The “poor me” image that engulfs Garcia likely will stick for the remainder of his career, which is a shame but not unwarranted. The true test of his latest disappointment and fall out will be if he can some how find the silver lining from this collapse and overcome the mental hurdles that have hampered him throughout his career.
That’s the question that remains. Obviously, the game is there, but is the mental fortitude it takes to withstand the pressure surrounding these big tournaments something that Garcia can develop in the coming years?
Players Championship Recap on 620 The Buzz
01 month ago
by Chris Chaney
in Golf
The New York Times
I joined Mark and Mike on 620 the Buzz in Raleigh, NC Monday morning to talk about Tiger Woods, Sergio Garcia and the rest of the Players Championship weekend.
Enjoy.
