Merion Golf Club's East Course is one of the best in the world, noted for its strategic layout, difficulty, and the timeliness of the design. One of the things that adds to the cache of the club are the distinctive wicker baskets the club uses instead of traditional pin flags.
Merion recently hosted the 2022 Curtis Cup amateur women's tournament and there was a nice article about the wicker baskets in the program written by Tom Mackin, which inspired me to write about them. It was great to be back at Merion and to see firsthand the improvements that Gil Hanse has made renovating the course. It was as beautiful and well conditioned as I have ever seen it.
We'll begin with a dozen fun facts about the baskets, drawn from the article.
1. Merion’s wicker baskets are known as standards.
2. The baskets on the front nine are red and the baskets on the back nine are orange; the poles are striped with red on the front nine and orange on the back nine. The orange color came about after World War II when the club’s agronomy department had left over orange paint they didn't want to waste.
3. The New York Times says the baskets are egg shaped, although the Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger described them in 1915 as pear shaped.
4. William Flynn, the greenskeeper at Merion in its early years, developed the baskets. He was issued a patent for them in 1916 and started a business selling them to the public: $50 for a set of 18 or $3 each.
5. When Flynn approached the club's Green Committee and proposed using the baskets instead of flags, they told him to go ahead and use them. At his expense.
6. If a ball becomes embedded in a basket, a local rule calls for the ball to be placed on the lip of the hole, without a penalty stroke. Some golfers would argue that it should be a hole in one, but that's not the rule. It seems more than fair to me, since more likely than not the ball would have gone well past the hole if it hadn't hit the basket.
7. The baskets are made by Joni-Dee Ross of Handmade North Carolina Baskets, and have been done so for the last 25 years. Prior to Ross making them, a member of the greens staff used to weave them in the winter.
8. For security reasons, all the baskets are removed from the course overnight to prevent theft.
9. Every basket has an identifying mark for authentication purposes, known only to a select handful of Merion staff and members.
10. Damaged baskets are burned!
11. Baskets are worth a lot of money. The article states that occasionally, and without the clubs consent, Merion baskets will show up on auction sites, most notably, Golden Age Auctions. Mackin says they sell for $5,000, although the latest auction for one in April of this year was for $9,200. Flynn would no doubt be proud that his $3 baskets are now worth such a fortune.
12. 16 of 17 of the U.S.G.A. championships Merion has hosted have featured the baskets. The most famous event, Ben Hogan's 1950 U.S. Open victory, was the only one that used pin flags instead of baskets.
Mackin notes that wicker baskets were used in the United Kingdom prior to those used at Merion, including at Prestwick in Scotland and Stokes Park near London. According the the New York Times, they believe the origin of the baskets was from the course architect Hugh Wilson, "There was even a meticulously detailed tale of how Wilson was spending time with the American ambassador at the Court of St. James’s, where there were three small putting greens. The ambassador’s wife had put three shepherd’s crooks topped with flower baskets in the holes, as the story went." Of the the club's histories, Golf at Merion 1896-1976, by Richard H. Heilman states that Wilson got the idea for the wicker baskets after visiting Sunningdale, outside London, although this is probably incorrect. There is no absolute certainty on the true origin of the idea.
After his career as a greenskeeper at Merion William Flynn would go on to design golf courses and created several classic designs. Among his designs are the Cherry Hills Country Club in Denver, the Kittansett Club in Rhode Island, as well as Lancaster Country Club and Manufacturers', both in Pennsylvania. Flynn also modified and help design Shinnecock Hills and the Country Club in Brookline, Mass.
Flynn's patent for his "Golf Standard," is below. The shape appears less bulbous than the current baskets used by the club.
It must take someone with a keen eye to tell the difference between the basket colors on the front and back nines. They all look red to me, I don't see the orange color no matter how hard I look. The point of using the wicker baskets is to make playing more difficult, since the golfer can't judge the wind direction or speed by looking at a flag.
Merion is not the only course that uses the wicker baskets today, although it is certainly the most famous. The Sea Island Golf Club (Seaside Course), in Georgia also uses them.
A wicker basket at the Sea Island Seaside course
A treasure trove of Merion wicker baskets. Photo credit: 2022 Curtis Cup Program
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