Sports: How Merion Got Its Groove Back

But when Davis joined Marucci, Greenwood and Iredale for a friendly round after lunch, something funny happened.

Restoration of the course was going well. Davis began to see potential.

He walked back to certain holes to see how the course might be toughened but still retain its charm and character. “I kept thinking, ‘If we did this or that, what kind of golf course could Merion be?’”

The Merion chaps sensed Davis’s a-ha moment. “We were like a bunch of school kids,” recalls Iredale. “We were excited about how excited he was getting. We started popping ideas right and left.”

And not just about the golf course. “One of them asked me if I’d thought about [neighboring] Haverford College,” Davis remembers. He hadn’t. But might it work for, say, additional hospitality tents? They showed him the college’s athletic fields. Then Davis checked out Merion’s second venue, its West Course. The East Course’s practice range could work for TV trailers, the West for a players’ practice area. “All these light bulbs started going off,” Davis recalls. “If we really started thinking outside the box … ”

The next morning, Mike Davis walked into David Fay’s office at USGA headquarters. “You’re not going to believe this,” he said. “We can put on an Open at Merion.”

BEFORE THE CHAMPAGNE could be uncorked, Fay knew the course had to prove it could defend itself against modern golf’s Tigers and Phils. Davis suggested a dry run: the Amateur. The best amateurs might not be as consistent as the pros, but they’re athletic and swing for the fences. In early November 1998, Buzz Taylor called Merion president Rod Day with good news: The 2005 Amateur was his to host. Taylor also told Day that Merion’s latest bid for another Open had been denied. “We accepted that,” says Iredale. For the moment.

In 1999, renowned golf-course architect Tom Fazio consulted on an overall plan, mirroring the 1930 template, that would lengthen the course layout from 6,400 yards to more than 6,800, a plan quickly approved by the board. “When you join Merion,” explains current president Rick Ill, “you’re joining a golf club, not a country club. And it’s been the tradition of Merion to support these events and do what needs to be done.”

Three years later, Fay showed up for the Jones Day event.

“No one ever questioned the specialness of the site,” Fay stresses, “though there was still a group who’d say, ‘It’s no longer the wooden-bat era. How can a museum piece withstand golf at the highest level?’” But Fay saw a classic golf course thoughtfully evolving — “They were taking the smudge off the painting,” he says — and a membership committed to change. “My appreciation,” he says, “was renewed.”