The U.S. Open and more: Two busy weeks in Delco

   There’s been so much going on between the U.S. Open at  Merion and the Philadelphia Amateur at Aronimink, I haven’t gotten to the blog for a while.

   The blog is designed to fill in the gaps when there isn’t enough room for golf in the paper (or the “print product,” as it seems to be almost disdainfully referred to these days). But all the U.S. Open stuff was getting in the paper and we’ve managed to sneak in a couple of the notebooks I like to put together for summer Saturday papers.

   First, the Open was a huge success on so many levels, not the least of which was Justin Rose’s winning 1-over 281 total. Look, I get it, that’s not the Merion you can still play from probably less than 6,500 yards from the regular tees when the membership gets their course back.

   The fifth is a monster at just over 400 yards. It was otherworldly at more than 500 yards from that tee in the 10^th fairway. Still, as low amateur Michael Kim’s caddy, a Merion looper named LaRue Temple (more on him later), put it, “you hit it left on 5, it’s going to end up in the creek, just like it always does on 5.”

   But the essential Merion was still there. I spent a lot of time Saturday and Sunday at the fifth green, shooting the breeze with the golf fans who congregated there. I told several of them that the par I made at five at the Walker Cup Media Day in 2009 is the single greatest hole of golf I’ve ever played. When Daily Times Phillies beat writer Dennis Deitch drilled a 4-iron to 12 feet at the par-3 17^th at this year’s U.S. Open Media Day, he said simply, “Pretty sure it was the best shot I ever hit in my life.”

    Because that’s what Merion makes you do. It makes you hit great shots, sometimes in spite of yourself.

   The U.S. Open is my favorite big event in sports, probably because that’s the big sporting event I’ve been to the most. And the three Opens at Merion in my lifetime stand out the most. I got more reaction from my story that ran in a special Open preview section and in various daily and weekly papers in the area about being a forecaddie at the 1971 Open and caddying in the 1981 Open than anything I’ve ever written. Heard from a lot of the old Merion caddies, many of whom have great memories of those days as well.

   That’s why one of the highlights of the 2013 Open was the media making the aforementioned LaRue Temple such a rock star following Saturday’s third round. Temple insisted he was just trying to “represent Merion,” which he did well. He also deflected a lot of the praise being heaped on him to Kim, the talented amateur who was one shot out of the lead when he stood on the 16^th tee the Saturday afternoon of the U.S. Open. “He’s the man,” Temple said more than a few times.

   Temple even showed up in Golf World’s list of quotables with his great line about how the Merion caddies often observe when a player is taking his or her time, “You’d think they were playing in the U.S. Open. Well, this week they are playing in the U.S. Open.”

   The bigger point about Temple is that a little local knowledge seemed to go a long way at Merion. Rose and the seemingly snakebit Phil Mickelson seemed to be among the better prepared players at Merion. Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy and quite a few others, not so much. In a lot of ways, it might not have been worthwhile for them to spend a lot of time preparing for an Open site they may not see again. When Tiger tees it up at Pinehurst next year, he will be playing his third Open there. He will probably fare better than he did at Merion.

   It was also nice to see how much the Ardmore/Haverford Township/Main Line community made that Open happen. Obviously, Haverford College allowing its campus to be turned into a tent city was the key element that allowed the Open to return to Merion.

   There were people who allowed the front yards of their homes on Golf House Road to be turned into concession stands and corporate hospitality tents and in the case of a backyard, the media interview area. The Haverford School gave up its parking lot for the media.

   If you went, and you thought it was a great event, you have those people and more to thank.

   The golf fans of the Philadelphia area, as they had at the two stagings of the AT&T National at Aronimink, came out in droves, got their boots and shoes muddy and watched some golf. For there not to be a regular stop on the PGA, LPGA or Champions tours in the Philadelphia is one of life’s great mysteries.

   Speaking of Aronimink, the Philly Amateur was staged in Delaware County for the first time in recent memory as the Donald Ross gem played host to a tournament that’s as old as the U.S. Open.

Not surprisingly, three of the four semifinalists were guys with strong Delco ties.

   Michael McDermott, the eventual champion, screams Delco. He’s a Haverford High grad, he grew up as a member at Llanerch Country Club and these days he’s a member at Merion Golf Club and Aronimink. That would be your three courses in Delco that have hosted major championships.

McDermott is all class and he is compiling a Golf Association of Philadelphia record that will make him one of this area’s all-time great amateurs.

   McDermott’s semifinal opponent was reinstated amateur Conrad Von Borsig, who is playing out of White Manor Country Club, but whose high school career at Strath Haven I chronicled.

   McDermott clobbered Von Borsig to reach the final, but I was able to have a long chat with Conrad following his opening-round victory and he was, as always, brutally honest about how tough the road is for a young golfer trying to move up the ranks in professional golf. He didn’t make it, but he wanted to give it a shot and he did.

   Michael Kania was the most successful of a large group of current and past Haverford School players at Aronimink. Four Fords, including Cole Berman, who will be back for his senior season this fall, made it into match play.

   Kania, part of the deep talent pool at Overbrook Golf Club, reached the semifinals before falling to Alexander Hicks the William &  Mary junior playing out of Wildwood Golf & Country Club.

   Lastly, I was able to get daily updates in the paper from the very last playing of the U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links Championship held at the Jimmie Austin OU Golf Club in Norman, Okla.

   Aurora Kan, Chichester’s 2010 PIAA champion, made match play in her fourth WAPL appearance and won a match before falling to Wisconsin phenom Casey Danielson, who’s headed for Stanford. Combined with her three U.S. Junior Girls appearances, Kan has qualified for seven USGA events before she’s turned 20.

   It will be interesting to see what kind of schedule Kan maps out for herself this summer. Last summer she took a trip with her old Radnor rival, Jackie Calamaro, the 2009 PIAA champion, to Pinehurst for the North and South Women’s Amateur.

   The Pennsylvania Women’s Amateur, which Kan won at Whitemarsh Valley in 2010 before her senior season at Chichester, is back in this part of the state at Gulph Mills Country Club in August, but the timing might not work with Kan’s preparation for her junior year at Purdue.