Welcome To The 2013 US Open

Welcome to the 2013 U.S. Open! Our national championship will be contested right here in our very own backyard! We’re obviously excited to

be able to do our little part to help you prepare for the biggest golf event in the tri-state area in what seems like forever. We know you’ve been bombarded with stories from all types of media detailing the unparalleled history of Merion

Golf Club. By now you’re very familiar, probably too familiar, with what Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, Lee Trevino and David Graham accomplished at Merion. You know about the wicker baskets, the white faces and the “back five.” So we we’re not going to give you all that good stuff in this guide. We’ve attacked this Open from a totally different angle and given you a preview that’s totally unique

and, we hope, totally interesting. Our main feature, in our humble opinion, turned out phenomenally.

We found 18 golf professionals, all local Philadelphia Section PGA

pros, other than former Merion GC Assistant Chandler Withington, who understandably couldn’t turn down an offer to take the reigns at famed Hazeltine National Golf Club in Minnesota, to discuss how those other pros will tackle Merion. Each pro picked a hole and gave us just awesome insight into how he thinks it will play in the Open. We’re eager to hear what you think.

Our other features include a profile of Applebrook Golf Club Teaching Professional Jim Masserio, a former PGA Tour player, who competed in both the 1971 and 1981 U.S. Opens at Merion, a tapping into the mind so to speak of MGOLF Driving Range & Learning Facility Stu Ingraham to find out just what it’s like to compete in a major championship, a story on the origin of Merion’s iconic emblem courtesy of Merion’s Pro Emeritus Bill Kittleman, and in-depth descriptions including photos of the top 10 spots to spend the day at Merion and 18 punishing places, one on each hole, those in the field must avoid at all costs. Take some time to thumb through all of that and a whole lot more.

But before you have a go at it, we’d be remiss if we didn’t allow our staff writer, Nate Oxman, to talk to you a little bit about what Merion means to him. After all, he’s spent more than half of his life at the place. Lucky him.