Open and shut case

   The golf writers gathered at Congressional Country Club to chronicle Rory McIlroy's runaway U.S. Open victory seem to be in a big hurry to chalk the record-setting effort by the youngster from Northern Ireland to easy conditions last week in Bethesda, Md.
   Kind of reminded me of the USGA's panic in the wake of David Graham's masterful final round 30 years to the week at the 1981 U.S. Open at Merion's famed East Course, where the National Open will finally return in two years. The golf course was too easy, everybody seemed to think. Graham's 273 total was just a shot behind the 272 record that Jack Nicklaus had established a year earlier at Baltusrol.
   All of which, I still think, has taken away from a magnificent final round by the Australian. He basically didn't miss a fairway or a green in the final round. Anybody who has ever played Merion East can tell you how difficult that is to do. They will also tell you that that's the secret to scoring at Merion, and a lot of other golf courses, too.
   Probably not a lot of golf fans noted the list of youngest 54-hole U.S. Open leaders that McIlroy was on after Saturday's third round. It included that Nicklaus fella and also one Jim Simons. It was 40 years to the week when a lot of us were pulling for "the kid" at the 1971 U.S. Open at Merion. A native of western Pennsylvania who was a 21-year-old Wake Forest player, Simons was in the hunt until the very last hole of that '71 Open.
   When Simons died a couple of years ago much too young, his Wake Forest teammate back in those days, Lanny Wadkins, recalled what a technically proficient player Simons was. Wadkins was always one of the purest talents of that era, but he marveled at Simons' ability to manage his game and the golf course. That's what the young amateur did at Merion, taking what the golf course gave him, nothing more, nothing less.
   Which brings us to the talented kid from Northern Ireland. He very simply put on a clinic on how to win a U.S. Open. He drove it straight and hit it on the green. Yes, the soft conditions allowed him to get some of those approaches particularly close. But as two-time U.S. Open champion Andy North noted on ESPN's Open recap Sunday night, look how many of those approach shots came from the middle of the fairway.
   As several observers noted Sunday, the USGA is not going to be happy about the number that McIlroy posted at Congressional. The organization overreacted to Johnny Miller's final-round 63 to win the 1973 Open at Oakmont by turning Winged Foot into a house of horrors in 1974 with the former Colorado football star Hale Irwin taking full advantage of the brutal conditions to earn one of his three National Open titles.
   It's unlikely that anybody will get to 16-under par at Olympia Fields next summer.
   All of which will set the stage for the return of the U.S. Open to Merion for the first time in 32 years in 2013. McIlroy's game would appear to be a good fit for the demands of an East Course that will be criticized as "too short" in advance of the 2013 Open.
   In the aftermath of the 2009 Walker Cup at Merion, Rickie Fowler and Peter Uihlein, who won the U.S. Amateur last summer, were in the media room, discussing, among other things, what kind of challenge Merion had presented.
   I can't remember which of the talented twosome said it (althought I think it was Fowler), but the answer went: "They can make this golf course as hard as they want to."
   Of course, if somebody decides to hit all the fairways and greens, as Jim Simons did as a 21-year-old amateur 40 years ago, as David Graham did as a precise veteran 30 years ago and as the 22-year-old McIlroy did last week at Congressional, Merion East can be had.
Hyland is Philly Amateur champion
   Michael Hyland of Little Mill C.C. claimed the second Golf Association of Philadelphia Amateur Champonship title of his career with a hard-fought 1-up triumph over Stephen Hudacek III of Glenmaura National G.C. in a 36-hole final that went the distance.
   Hyland was just 21 when he first wrote his name on the J. Wood Platt Trophy with a Philly Amateur victory in 2000. In the ensuing 11 years, he turned pro, but then returned to the amateur ranks in 2005 before becoming the 17th player to own multiple Philly Amateur titles.
Kania Jr. giving it the college try
    Villanova golf coach Jim Wilkes confirmed last week a rumor that's been going around that James Kania Jr., the 2009 GAP Player of the Year, decided not to play his senior season at the University of Kentucky. Kania, the 2004-05 Daily Times Player of the Year following his junior season at The Haverford School, instead will try to rejoin younger brother Michael and play at Villanova in the spring of 2012.
   James Kania Jr. will be taking classes this summer and again in the fall semester with the intention of joining a talented Villanova nucleus next spring. The Wildcats got a huge talent infusion to an already solid group last summer when Michael Kania, Rob Galbreath, one of GAP's all-time best junior players and a two-time district One champion at Lower Moreland, and Brian Murphy transferred in to the Main Line. Villanova finished third in the Big East Tournament to cap a very successful spring campaign last month.
   Wilkes also said that Will Reilly, who began the 2010-11 school year as the Villanova coach, turned the program over to Wilkes after Reilly joined the national PGA as its director of junior golf.
Kan ready to write the next chapter
   If you're a golf fan, I hope you've been following the career of Chichester's Aurora Kan, the 2010 PIAA champion whose brilliant scholastic career it was my distinct pleasure to chronicle.
    For the third time, I wrote a Player of the Year story on Kan in Tuesday's Daily Times, but it's hardly the last you'll hear from her. She's headed for Purdue to join a program that has been the NCAA champion in 2010 and runnerup in 2011. Kan is likely to run into her old rival, Jackie Calamaro, who won the 2009 PIAA title at Radnor and is now at Illinois.
   In the meantime, Kan will be trying to add to the four USGA events she's already competed in in her still fledgling golf career this summer. She is a tremendous player and a better person, as her teachers and classmates at Chichester and her fellow competitors on the golf course will attest.