Rain may force Open away from Merion for good

On Monday afternoon, when rain fell in torrents, when soggy spectators clogged muddy pathways, when a parking lot became impassable and traffic choked surrounding roads, the U.S. Golf Association must have thought its enormous Merion gamble had gone bust.

The course's long history seduced the USGA into overlooking its logistical shortcomings. In the end, Bobby Jones and Ben Hogan trumped fears about a lack of access, size, and amenities for the U.S. Open.

But for the USGA to justify a smaller payday and bigger headaches, everything probably had to go ideally this June: Merion would have to bare its teeth. The crowds of 25,000 daily fans would have to flow in and out smoothly. Sunny nostalgia would have to be the dominant theme.

And then came the deluge.

For both the course and the Open's administrators, Monday's downpours, which followed more than three inches of rain Friday, prompted an immediate and obvious question:

What does it all mean for Merion's Open future?

While no one is willing to answer definitively at this early stage of the event, and while players continue to laud the course, it's already difficult to envision a scenario in which the charming little layout hosts its sixth U.S. Open.

"Hopefully, we can come back," Ernie Els said somewhat gloomily after lamenting the rain, "because I really love these old-style, traditional-style golf courses."

There are no U.S. Open guarantees, no surefire method to being selected as a venue.

The national championship's history is filled with courses that have hosted the event - often more than once - and then disappeared from the unofficial rotation. Who remembers Scioto or Glen View or Bellerive?

Some, such as Northwood in 1952, pop into the rotation, then never resurface. Shinnecock Hills, meanwhile, went 90 years after hosting the second U.S. Open (1896) before it got another (1986). Others, such as Riviera, decide that an annual PGA event suits them better.

Among all the courses that have hosted Opens, perhaps only Oakmont and Pebble Beach seem safe and secure.

"Oakmont is one of those courses where the people tell us if something went wrong and we needed an emergency venue, it could be ready in a week," said Mike Trostle, the historian at the USGA Museum in Far Hills, N.J. "It and Pebble will always be in. The rest of the courses will come and go."

While there often appears to be little logic to the selection process, the USGA clearly has attempted to incorporate public courses (Bethpage and Torrey Pines) and newer ones without much of a historic pedigree (Chambers Bay in Washington state, the 2015 site, and Erin Hills in Wisconsin, the 2017 locale).

Meanwhile, familiar multiple-Open sites such as Cherry Hills, Oak Hill, and Medinah have left the picture.

The decision isn't always the USGA's. Occasionally, Open courses eliminate themselves from consideration.

"In some places, the members just decide they don't want another one," Trostle said. "It's not easy. They've got to give up their course for a year, or maybe they don't want to further upset the residents in the surrounding neighborhoods."

Some courses desperately want in. Cherry Hills, Oak Hill, and Inverness have undergone significant redesigns in recent years, presumably with landing another Open in mind.

Like Merion, Inverness in Toledo, Ohio, has a rich history. Unlike Merion, it has ample room and enough on-site parking to accommodate thousands of cars. But even though it's been the site of three Opens, the event hasn't returned since 1979.

Many believe that Inverness shot itself in the foot when it agreed to host another of the USGA's annual tournaments, the 1990 Senior Open, then backed out.

"We still embrace national-championship golf, and we very much believe this golf course is a U.S. Open course," Inverness board chairman Tom Geiger Jr. said in 2011. "We have a great relationship with the USGA, and they've never questioned our facilities. It's more of an economic marketplace issue."

In fact, market size and population density seem to be significant factors in the 2000s. Perhaps because of that, Midwestern courses such as Inverness and Oakland Hills have been shut out recently. Only once since 2001, when Southern Hills in Tulsa, Okla., was the site, has the Open been played anywhere between the two coasts.

Historically, it's been length that's rendered many former Open courses obsolete. Before the Haskell ball debuted around 1900, Open courses such as Myopia Hunt and Chicago Golf Club were long enough, even at less than 6,000 yards.

Merion, of course, is short by contemporary standards at a little less than 7,000 yards. It also has the added burden of being landlocked. Because of its size challenges, total attendance for the 2013 Open has been limited to about 180,000 - 50,000 fewer than went to Olympic and Congressional the last two years.

"The size of the property here [generally estimated at 111 to 125 acres] is roughly one-fourth the size of what we'll have available next year at Pinehurst No. 2," Trostle said.

That drawback was evident even when the Open came to Merion in 1981, the stone age when compared to the corporate and technological spectacle the modern event has become.

"When we closed up in 1981," USGA executive director Mike Davis said of Merion, "we really thought this was the last time. . . . It had nothing to do with the golf course in terms of how it played. But it had everything to do with how do you fit a modern Open on this 111 acres?

"For us, this is taking what has become a huge championship and saying, 'You know what, for the good of the game, we can't not come back to a place like this.' "

Still, the weaknesses exposed by the recent rain could be a death warrant for Merion's future hopes.

USGA vice president Tom O'Toole was asked whether that was so.

"I hope not," O'Toole said. "I hope not."