There are few courses that have garnered as much respect in the golf architecture world over the past 5 years than the Wissahickon Course at Philadelphia Cricket Club.
Philadelphia Cricket Club: A New Look for an Old Classic
The A.W. Tillinghast course has unbelievable bones, but the forest that has grown up around it over the last few decades took a golden age gem, and had turned it into something a bit more pedestrian.
Luckily, the club made the difficult decision to do something about it.
They brought in Keith Foster who has done some excellent restoration work at courses like Moraine Country Club, and Eastward Ho – but the Wissahickon at Philadelphia Cricket Club may be his crowning achievement.
The renovation work that was done in 2014 led to the removal of over 2500 trees, and it completely transformed the golf course from a good not great, Philly track, to one of the very best courses in a city full of great golf courses.
We played with two people from the Golf Association of Philadelphia, so it was pretty cool to hear their thoughts on golf in the region, as well as the history of the course.
The par 5, 7th was one of my favorite holes I played on the trip – and the course has an excellent variety of holes to keep things interesting.
The par 4, 18th was one of the best finishing holes I’ve played.
Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your priorities we played it on a very grey day right before they closed the course for the Senior Players.
Literally, we had one of the last tee times.
So the course was in fantastic condition, but due to the weather and plethora of sponsor’s tents, the photos from the day left something to be desired.
I’d love to get back and play Philly Cricket Club again. With so much going on before the tournament, it was hard to get a feel for what the club was really like.
