Controversial Wicker Baskets To Be Used Instead Of Flags At 2013 US Open

Iwicker-basket-3_4_r383_c0-0-380-510s this not the strangest thing you’ve seen on top of a golf pin?  It’s a wicker basket, called “standards” and these are used throughout US Open venue Merion Golf Links.  And it looks like Merion will be retaining the wicker baskets instead of flags throughout this year’s US Open.

The last big event to be held at Merion was the 2009 Walker Cup, during which the wicker was used.  USA trounced GB&I that year with players such as Rickie Fowler, Bud Cauley and Cameron Tringale hoping to return this Summer.

 

Yahoo blogger Shane Bacon had the wicker confirmed by Merion:

"The wicker baskets' origin is a mystery to this day. There was a great deal written in 1912, and for three years thereafter, locally and nationally about this new course in Philadelphia. However, there was no mention of the soon-to-be famous wicker baskets. It could be assumed they were not there. By the summer Rickie Fowler Bud Cauley 2009 Walker Cup Day KVFFUE2-vEBxof 1915, William Flynn, Merion's Superintendent, received patent approval for his wicker basket design. Merion had baskets that fall and from then-to-today. It could be assumed, due to lack of written proof, that Flynn convinced Wilson to use the baskets, and Merion received its "basket notoriety" the next year during the 1916 US Amateur."

But have organizers taken into account Tiger Woods pin hitting incident on the 17th at Augusta during The Masters? These wicker baskets with their added volume make the chances of a similar or worse rebound very high, and with greens expected to be lightning fast, wicker baskets could play a very controversial role.

hogan 1950 us open merion

Although the baskets were used prior to the 1950 US Open at Merion, they were replaced with flags before the event to avoid the very controversy they seem happy to court today.

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