The past few years I have written a U.S. Open preview about the course, the field, and all the usual things you want to read about in a preview, looking for some nugget of information or point of view that no one else has.

This year I want to do something different. It’s because so much is being made of whether Merion East is obsolete as a championship course, with the USGA trying to let us know that it isn’t.

This year is the 100th anniversary of Francis Ouimet’s victory over Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, the American kid beating the two English titans and putting American golf in the map. It was the equivalent of the (very) local phenom beating Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson in an 18-hole playoff, and beating them decisively.

The problem is, Ouimet won that Open not here, but at The Country Club in Boston, a course that truly is no longer suitable for championship play. But why here, is the puzzle.

East Merion: so small, so short. The 2007 U.S. Amateur was held here as a test to see if modern hitters would overpower the course or whether it would hold its own. East Merion passed the test, and the green light was on for another Open.

The course is historical, but it belongs to another time. The power game that is played now will not be evident. Last year there was so much fuss about Olympic, which was long enough, but so demanding off the tee that the driver would be taken out of play.

East Merion is the same. The winner will have to play a precise round of golf four days in a row, and that hardly suggests we’ll see many drivers. That shouldn’t happen in the U.S. Open.

This tournament is the toughest test of every club in the bag, every shot you have. To make arguably the most important club in the bag irrelevant goes dead against that concept.

The course is so short that longer hitters on the LPGA circuit could compete. Why none of them tried to qualify, I’ll never know.

The USGA is trying so hard to preserve golf as it was that they don’t see golf as it is: an evolving game that deserves to move away from its past while still paying homage to it.

All this is not to say the the pros will have a field day this week. USGA greenskeepers could set up your local layout and protect par against a top PGA field.

Golfers come and go. There’s no more Ben Hogan. Arnold Palmer doesn’t play in the Open any more, neither does Jack Nicklaus. We regret their passing while realizing that this is part of life moving on.

There comes a time when history must be regarded as history, when we just have to let go. New golfers playing a different game deserve new courses that showcase that game. Older courses, built for older styles of golf, should be allowed to retire and be appreciated by the recreational golfers for whom they are still suitable.

I love this course, and I wish it well this week. But after that, let’s start building new courses worthy of determining golf’s champion, and hold the competition at those places. See you in two years at Chambers Bay.