Patrick;
I think I asked you first about whether you had played Merion prior to the bunker recreation, but that's ok...I'll be happy to answer your question based on my limited knowledge.
Anyway, I'm assuming that you have played there prior and after and I'm simply asking for your own objective opinion and value judgement concerning their aesthetics, but more importantly, your peceived impression of their "evolutionary ability", irrespective of the mandate of the club.
But, as far as the club's mandate, I certainly hesitate to speak for them because they certainly seem to have gone into the project with really good intentions based on what I've heard. Aspects of the work have been wonderful, such as the tree removal which has opened up beautiful vistas and they should certainly be applauded for those accomplishments.
I don't want to speak for them, nor should I speculate in that regard. Instead, I can only quote from segments of a "Philadelphia Inquirer" newspaper article by Joe Logan, where club officials were interviewed and hopefully that will be helpful.
"In golf course architectural circles, Merion's bunkers have always been known as classics from the golden age of golf course design. Rather than having the neat, smooth edges so common today, Merion's bunkers were uneven, jagged, rough-hewn, seasoned around the edges with wild dune grass and Scottish broom, the scruffy plant depicted in the club's logo. Worn and weathered by the years, the bunkers had the look, one might say, of a salty, craggy, old sea captain's face."
"The bunkers have come out of the restoration looking smoother, clean, and modern."
..."Other observers, including Ron Whitten, the respected architecture critic for Golf Digest, had their doubts. "Was Tom Fazio the right man to do the job? I don't know", Whitten said. "A lot of architects pay great lip service to restoring courses, but it's hard for them to supplant their egos and styles to some guy who's been dead for 50 years. I can tell you that I've never heard Tom Fazio say he had tried to restore a course."
Whitten, who has yet to see the changes in person (article was from August 2001), questions whether the work at Merion qualifies as a true restoration, or more of a renovation, an updating.
"If you really want to take Merion back to 1930, you've got to shut off the water", he said, referring to the modern irrigation system. "Then, you've got to put in bluegrass fairways, rye grass greens, and make people play the course with wooden-shafted clubs. You can't really turn back time."
At Merion, they shrug over such talk. "This was not a design project for Fazio", Marucci said. "We handed him the old pictures and said, "This is what we want.""
..."This is a work in progress," said Bill Iredale, chairman of Merion's Golf Committee.
Soon enough, the distinctive, scruffy Scottish Broom and dune grasses will be planted around the bunkers. They will look more as they used to. Time and Mother Nature will eventually smooth the edges of the bunkers. Iredale believes that even the Internet critics will eventually fall silent.
"That pressed and dry-cleaned look will be gone in a season or two" Iredale said. "
So, Patrick, my question remains. Do we think that modern, sharp edged, "dry cleaned and pressed", mechanically shaped and synthetically reinforced bunkers will evolve in the same ways as their original counterparts?
You've seen the way modern bunkers are constructed. Do you see them evolving with time as seems to be the hope at Merion?
On an interesting sidenote, related to some of the ongoing discussion you're having with Tom MacWood, Philadelphia Country Club has recently restored all of their bunkers inhouse supervised by Superintendent Mike McNulty with consultation by Ron Forse.
My honest impression of the work is that it's fabulous, and contrasts dramatically with what I've seen at Merion and others. It's tough to look at it and not come to the conclusion that it's all in the time spent on the details.