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| Defending Women's Open champion Inbee Park will play Saucon Valley for the first time, but the club isn't a stranger to USGA championships, having hosted five. (John Mummert/USGA) |
Why is the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania so rich in USGA championship history? Location, tradition – and great golf courses
By Joe Logan
When it comes to hosting USGA national championships, no state can claim more history, tradition or sheer number of competitions than Pennsylvania.
Indeed, with the 64th U.S. Women’s Open coming to Saucon Valley Country Club in Bethlehem in July and the 43rd Walker Cup Match set for Merion Golf Club in Ardmore in September, the Keystone state will have hosted a total of 79 USGA championships by the end of the 2009 golf season, increasing its double-digit lead over the state with the second most championships to its credit, California, with 67.
No less impressive is the fact that a single club, Merion, in suburban Philadelphia, has hosted 17 USGA championships, more than any other club in the country and, actually, more than 32 states through the 2008 championship season -- which doesn’t count the Walker Cup this year or the U.S. Open in 2013.
Pennsylvania’s record as the host with the most comes as no surprise to Mike Davis, the USGA’s senior director of Rules and Competition.
"And it’s not going to change in foreseeable future because we keep getting these wonderful invitations from Pennsylvania," said Davis, a native of Chambersburg, Pa., about midway between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. "Pennsylvania has a long list of great courses, and we tend to gravitate to great courses. Who wouldn’t go to Merion?"
In Davis’ view, several factors contribute to Pennsylvania’s dominance in hosting USGA championships. First, Pennsylvania is a vast and old state, where the birth of golf predates the founding of the USGA in 1894. That history gave Pennsylvania a head start over younger golf-crazy states like California, Florida and Arizona.
Second, Pennsylvania, centrally located in the Northeast, benefits not only from its proximity to the East Coast population centers but also from its temperate climate during the summer months when the USGA stages most of its championships.
Finally, Davis sees in Pennsylvania a certain spirit for the game that the USGA finds irresistible.
"Other states have great courses, but we don’t get the invitations," said Davis, noting that the USGA hosts 17 competitions, not just the three Opens. "Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in New York doesn’t invite us for the Girls’ Junior, like Merion does."
Buddy Marucci, who will captain the USA Walker Cup team at his home club of Merion in September, confirmed and applauded that spirit.
"Merion is enormously significant in golf history and in USGA history," said Marucci, the reigning USGA Senior Amateur champion. "Part of it is because of the fabulous golf course and part of it is because the club is dedicated to hosting championships. It’s kind of in the DNA of the club."
Mimi Griffin, executive director of this year’s U.S. Women’s Open, feels no differently about Saucon Valley, a grand old country club that has hosted five previous championships, including the 1992 and 2000 U.S. Senior Open.
"When something like this comes here, people really support it," said Griffin. "It’s a once-in-a-decade event that people don’t want to miss."
As with USGA championships overall, Pennsylvania leads the way in hosting the U.S. Women’s Open. The Women’s Open at Saucon Valley this summer will be the seventh in the Keystone State, breaking a tie in the lead it shares with next-door neighbor New Jersey. That advantage will only grow in the coming years as Pennsylvania hosts three of the next six Women’s Opens (2010 at Oakmont, 2015 at Lancaster).
What brought the Women’s Open to Saucon was the success of the two Senior Opens contested at the club. Davis expects big things during the women’s week in the Lehigh Valley as well.
"They reason we went back so soon in 2000 was because they set the bar so high in ’92," said Davis. "And after another great event in 2000, the club said they wanted to keep doing these – they’d like a Women’s Open. For us, it was a ridiculously easy decision. Great course, great facility, and it’s a market where the championship doesn’t get lost."
While Merion and Oakmont may be the star attractions in Pennsylvania, especially when it comes to U.S. Opens, they are hardly the only championship-worthy courses in Pennsylvania. Over the years, the USGA has spread the championship wealth around to no fewer than 29 clubs – 30 if you count the Women’s Open coming to Lancaster Country Club in 2015.
Not only has Pennsylvania hosted the most USGA championships, it has also produced some of the most memorable. No fewer than five of the championships in Pennsylvania rank among the game’s greatest moments.
Ironically, the most memorable of them all was not one of the eight U.S. Opens at Oakmont or one of the four Opens at Merion, but rather the U.S. Amateur at Merion in 1930, when Bob Jones completed the Grand Slam on a cool, cloudy Saturday in September.
To this day, Jones’ feat of winning all four of the game’s preeminent competitions in a single season has never been equaled, and his historic achievement is commemorated by a plaque at the 11th tee at Merion, the hole where he closed out Eugene Homans, 8 and 7.
Two decades later, in 1950, Merion was the stage for another of golf’s most fabled moments when Ben Hogan, barely recovered from a horrific automobile accident the year before that nearly killed him, literally limped to victory at the U.S. Open. The drama of that Open lives on in an iconic photograph – Hy Peskin’s black-and-white image of Hogan, in the middle of the spectator-lined 18th fairway, hitting a 1-iron into the distant green.
In 1939, at Philadelphia Country Club in nearby Gladwyne, another U.S. Open earned a place in the pantheon of great championships. That was the Open in which Sam Snead stepped onto the 72nd tee needing only a par at the finishing 555-yard par 5 to win by a shot over Byron Nelson.
Alas, in an age before electronic scoreboards with instant updates, Snead believed he needed to make a birdie to win. An errant tee shot, a risky second shot, and a bad break cost Snead a triple-bogey and his best chance to win the U.S. Open. The missed opportunity devastated Snead, and many people believe it turned the Open into a pinnacle he could never quite reach. The ’39 U.S. Open also turned out to be the only one Nelson ever won.
Meanwhile, on the western end of the state, in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Oakmont has earned a reputation as perhaps the sternest Open test of all. The 2007 U.S. Open at Oakmont did nothing to dispel that reputation, as Angel Cabrera won with a 5-over-par 285.
But, two other U.S. Opens at Oakmont stand out even more. In 1962, Arnold Palmer, at 32, arrived at Oakmont at the top of his game and top of his fame. Not only was he the reigning Masters champion and leading money winner on the PGA Tour, but Oakmont was a home game for Palmer, his hometown of Latrobe being only 40 miles to the east. Jack Nicklaus was a pudgy 22-year-old rookie from next-door Ohio with a lot of promise but so far no professional wins.
That would change over the course of the following four days, as Nicklaus, taunted and ridiculed by crowds that heavily favored the hometown hero, went on to down Palmer in an 18-hole two-man playoff on Sunday, prevailing by three shots.
"I can’t play any better than I played here, and I couldn’t win," Palmer, stunned by defeat, said afterward. "And that Nicklaus, he won’t give anything. He played super."
Eleven years later at Oakmont, Johnny Miller made history en route to victory at the 1973 U.S. Open, firing a final-round 8-under 63 that remains tied as the lowest round to par ever shot in any of golf’s four majors.
"That round at Oakmont was just a dream round that made my career," Miller, now a golf commentator with NBC, said at the 2007 Open – Oakmont’s latest. "Not trying to pat myself on the back. I'm trying to be what I think is accurate as I can, and it was just, tee-to-green, it was under pressure, the best round I’ve ever seen."
Not surprisingly, Pennsylvania’s bounty of courses spurs a good-natured, ongoing debate over which end of the state has the greatest layouts, Pittsburgh in the west or Philadelphia in the east. Let that debate be settled here and now, in favor of Philadelphia.
"The Pittsburgh area, for all its excellent courses, I don’t believe has quite the number of outstanding courses we do in the Philadelphia area," said golf historian and author James W. Finegan, from Villanova, Pa.
Even Carol Semple Thompson, lifelong resident of Sewickley, in suburban Pittsburgh, winner of both the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur and the USGA Senior Women’s Amateur on her home course of Allegheny Country Club, is willing to admit that Philadelphia rules.
"I have great pride in the western end of the state, but there are more great courses in Philadelphia," said Thompson, general chairman of the 2010 U.S. Women’s Open at Oakmont. "I hate to have to admit that."
Joe Logan is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia.
