Schupak: Remembering Eddie Merrins, The Little Pro

The Little Pro, by way of Merion, always had a cure for the common swing.

Word that Eddie Merrins had died on Thanksgiving Eve hit me like a cold bucket of water as I gathered in the kitchen with family and monitored the making of the next day’s feast.

Merrins, who died at 91 in Los Angeles, was one of golf’s most respected professionals, a championship-winning coach at UCLA, a beloved figure and an institution at Bel-Air Country Club. In recent years, as pro emeritus, he could still be found there impeccably dressed in a coat and tie and white-knit tam o’shanter, ready to impart his wisdom to another golfer desperate for help.

I had the privilege of writing a story for the 2013 U.S. Open preview issue on the 5-foot-7 Merrins, affectionately known as The Little Pro, and it was the start of a beautiful friendship. Without fail, he’d seek me out at every Masters, U.S. Open and PGA Championship he attended – add me to the list who received an impromptu lesson from Merrins, who advised me to start my swing in New York, flow through Chicago on the way to Los Angeles. I’d be called to the front desk of the media center at the Masters or come back to my desk and find a note that I could come to find him setting up shop on the range. One year, I dressed to the nines in a tuxedo for the Ben Hogan Award as his guest at the ceremony held annually on the Monday of the PGA Tour stop at Colonial. He’d often welcome me to Bel-Air for a get-together when I was in town for Riviera, including one time when he walked all 18 as I played.

We last spoke on June 9 and I could tell his health had deteriorated and his son, Michael, who was often by his side during his travels, complained that he wasn’t getting the care he needed. We made plans to meet up at the U.S. Open but it never came to be. Little Pro kept his word and made it to the course for the final round but I was out on the sixth tee watching Rory McIlroy play. Ten minutes later, I texted him and his son that I’d be back at the media center shortly but we never connected. Regrets, I have a few.

After getting home from the holidays, I dug up my copy from that Merion story and I’m borrowing liberally from it here because it tells the story about how for more than five decades, Merrins gave lessons to everyone from Bing Crosby to Arnold Palmer to Celine Dion and Rickie Fowler to a fellow groomsman at a wedding as the bride walked down the aisle.

“He said he was having a problem with his balance,” Merrins recalled. “What was I supposed to do?”

The man was born to teach, or so he discovered at Merion Golf Club, where he competed in the 1971 Open, and more importantly, the place his life as a teaching pro took shape.

“The discoveries I made there are still the bedrock of my teaching philosophy today,” he said in 2013.

How he arrived at Merion is a story in itself. At 24, Merrins turned pro on the eve of the Lake Charles (Louisiana) Invitational in April 1957, and cashed a check for $250. Next he qualified for the U.S. Open at Inverness Golf Club. Off Merrins went to Ohio to pursue the life of a touring pro. Or so he thought, until one night, prior to the U.S. Open, when he bellied up to the hotel bar and the direction of his life was altered.

Tommy Bolt and Walter Hagen delivered a rookie indoctrination he’d never forget, but it was another conversation with Ed Carter, who ran the PGA Tour at the time, that would shape his future. Carter informed the diminutive Merrins that Merion was seeking an assistant pro whose primary responsibility would be to play with the members. As Merrins put it, “I was looking for a job to support my habit, which was golf.”

Intrigued by the opportunity, Merrins dashed off to Philadelphia for an interview after missing the cut. There he met Francis Sullivan, the former state district attorney and personal attorney for Ben Hogan, who became a surrogate father to Merrins and later godfather to his son, Michael. Sullivan served on the board that hired Merrins on the spot.

So did Jacques Houdry, who coined Merrins’s nickname, “The Little Pro.” Houdry served as best man when Merrins wed Lisa, his bride of more than 50 years in a 1961 ceremony held in New York City. Need more evidence that the Merion members adopted him as one of their own? Consider this: “We had our wedding reception at the old Park Lane Hotel and a whole train carload of people from Merion came along,” Merrins remembered.

From 1957 until 1960, he played regularly with Guy Bates, the club champion, Andrew Davis, who once recorded 10 threes in a row at Merion, and A. Ross Crane, a Philadelphia dentist who told Merrins he might not be the best in town but he was the most expensive. He never charged Merrins a cent.

Architecturally, Merrins called Merion the finest golf course he’d ever seen.

“It’s a masterpiece,” he said. “I remember the two reigning architects of the day were Robert Trent Jones Sr. and Dick Wilson and both of them would walk around Merion all the time just to get ideas, to get visions to use in their design work.”

Merion shaped Merrins into the pro he would become. He had a passion for the game but not a love and respect for it until he spent time there, he said.

Merrins had turned pro to play the game. But at Merion, Merrins was required to teach and discovered he was a teacher at heart. His exploration of the swing happened on Merion’s lesson tee. It’s where he formed the basis for his instructional book and (later video) titled, “Swing the Handle.”

Merrins spent the winter of 1959 under the guidance of Claude Harmon at Thunderbird Golf Club, then left Merion in 1960 to become the head professional at Rockaway Hunt Club in Cedarhurst, New York, where he replaced Dave Marr.

Merrins was living the life of “an itinerant preacher.” He quit the Tour in 1962 to take the head pro job at Bel-Air, and so began a life of service.

“Being a pro golfer means caring about yourself,” Merrins said. “It seemed like a selfish existence to me. I wanted to do more.”

So Merrins spent a lifetime spreading the gospel of golf, even when it meant demonstrating the top of the backswing with an umbrella in an airport, adjusting a grip during an earthquake, or fixing a groomsman’s balance at the altar. The Little Pro, by way of Merion, always had a cure for the common swing.

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It was a bad morning to be a top seed in the U.S. Women’s Amateur Round of 32

It was a bad morning to be a top seed at the U.S. Women’s Amateur.

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LOS ANGELES — Coming into the Round of 32 at the U.S. Women’s Amateur, four of the top five seeds were still alive. After the latest round of match play, that number is down to zero.

There was carnage Thursday morning at Bel-Air Country Club, coming in the tune of the top seeds going down. It started with medalist Briana Chacon, who fell 4 and 2 to Catie Craig, a rising junior at Western Kentucky. Third-seed Gianna Clemente, who won the 2023 U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball earlier this year, advanced to the semifinals of the U.S. Girls’ Junior and won last week’s Junior PGA Championship, lost 4 and 3 to Anne Chen, a senior at Duke.

U.S. Women’s Amateur: Photos

Fourth-seeded Katie Cranston also lost 2 down against 2022 U.S. Girls’ Junior winner Yana Wilson. UCLA’s own Caroline Canales, the fifth seed, fell 4 and 3 to incoming LSU freshman Taylor Riley.

No. 8 Nikki Oh (1 up over Laney Frye) and No. 9 Rachel Heck (4 and 2 over Rin Yoshida) were among the low seeds who avoided going down and will face off in the Round of 16, which begins Thursday afternoon.

The highest seed remaining is No. 6 Megan Schofill, a grad student at Auburn. She was 3 down after 4 but fought back to win 3 and 2. Also moving on is No. 7 Hailey Borja, who won 1 up over Sara Im.

LSU’s Latanna Stone knocked off Wake Forest’s Rachel Kuehn, 2 and 1. Kuehn is seventh in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, the second-highest ranked player in the field behind No. 5 Anna Davis, who won 3 and 2 in the Round of 32 to advance and will face Chen.

After Thursday’s Round of 16, the quarterfinals will be set for Friday afternoon’s quarterfinals. The semifinals will be Saturday with the 36-hole final set for Sunday.

Best matchups in Round of 16

No. 8 Nikki Oh vs. No. 9 Rachel Heck, 4:10 p.m. ET

No. 29 Yana Wilson vs. No. 45 Latanna Stone, 4:20 p.m. ET

Check out photos of every hole at Bel-Air for the 2023 U.S. Women’s Amateur

See the challenges the best women amateurs in the world will face at Bel-Air.

Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles is a longtime host to Hollywood A-listers. This week, they will stand aside for the U.S. Women’s Amateur.

The elite private club has served as the main course for USGA events before: the 1976 U.S. Amateur won by Bill Sander and the 2004 U.S. Senior Amateur won by Mark Bemowski. But this will be the first chance for a top event at the course for women, some of whom likely will return for the 2026 Curtis Cup. Bel-Air also will be the site for the 2030 U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship for men.

Bel-Air ranks No. 10 in an incredibly stacked California on Golfweek’s Best ranking of top private courses in each state, and it ties for No. 56 in Golfweek’s Best ranking of top classic courses built before 1960 in the U.S.

This Women’s Am is a continuation of a big year for the architecture of George Thomas, who also laid out Los Angeles Country Club’s North Course, site of the 2023 U.S. Open won by Wyndham Clark. Thomas also designed Riviera, site of the PGA Tour’s Genesis Invitational.

Thomas’ design – actually a co-design alongside William P. Bell – at Bel-Air opened in 1926, playing through canyons on a small parcel of land adjacent to UCLA. The course required the use of a famed swinging bridge and even an elevator as players traverse the sometimes extreme terrain.

Architect Tom Doak restored much of Thomas’ design in 2018, removing extraneous bunkers that had been added over the decades and angling to have the course play much more as it did when it opened. The restoration has drawn rave reviews and led to the USGA planning more events at the club.

The course is slated to play to 6,187 yards with a par of 70 for the Women’s Am.

Photographer Bill Hornstein captured beautiful shots of each hole at Bel-Air for the USGA.

Three upcoming USGA championships on the books for Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles

Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles is firmly on the U.S. Golf Association’s championship schedule.

Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles is firmly on the U.S. Golf Association’s championship schedule. The prestigious private club will show up as a backdrop to three amateur championships over the next decade: the 2023 U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship, 2026 Curtis Cup Match and 2030 U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship.

Most recently, Bel-Air was the stroke-play companion course to the 2017 U.S. Amateur at Riviera Country Club. It previously hosted two USGA championships: 1976 U.S. Amateur and the 2004 U.S. Senior Amateur.

“Bel-Air is one of the country’s most prestigious courses, steeped in golf history, and we couldn’t be more excited to celebrate three more USGA championships there,” said John Bodenhamer, senior managing director of Championships, USGA. “The USGA is looking forward to continuing to build our relationship with this esteemed club.”

Located in the heart of Los Angeles, Bel-Air is a private club with an 18-hole course originally designed by George Thomas and recently renovated by Tom Doak and Renaissance Golf Design. The course is known for its dramatic topography as well as the impressive suspension bridge that spans a canyon on the 225-yard par-3 10th and serves as a stunning backdrop for the 18th hole.

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