NEWTOWN SQUARE, PENNSYLVANIA | Forgive me if I am teaching my grandmother to suck eggs but I am going to tell you about an event that occurred in the 17th century, a time that we in Britain refer to as yesterday. (I owe that joke to King Charles III, who made a similar quip in his recent speech to Congress.)
Please bear with me, though. In 1681 William Penn, a bewigged, plump Englishman who bears the same name as a village in Buckinghamshire, England, left his homeland to travel to what would become the United States. Nearly 350 years later I would leave my town, no more than 10 miles from Penn in the county of Oxfordshire (a county adjoining Buckinghamshire) to follow in Penn’s footsteps to travel to Pennsylvania.
Penn was acting on behalf of his king, Charles II, to found not the state but the glorious Province of Pennsylvania, as the original colony was formally known. Give or take a hiccup or two, he did it with aplomb. I was acting on behalf of Global Golf Post, travelling to attend my 45th PGA Championship, my first at Aronimink, my first in Philadelphia, my first in Pennsylvania.
Whether Penn was as excited then as I was on Monday is doubtful. Even now, 170 major championships to the good, my pulse starts to race when I fly to the U.S. for one of the three American major championships and the Players. Don’t ask me why. It just does. By the way, it also races for the Open, the Walker and Ryder cups, foursomes golf, the clubhouse at Royal Porthcawl, the old peninsula nine holes at Nefyn in North Wales, squash and real tennis, Welsh male voice choirs, red wine and Welsh rugby.
Even before I set foot on Aronimink, I came across portents that were guaranteed to increase my enthusiasm for this part of the U.S. For one thing there was the preponderance of Welshness, so much so that parts of the state, whoops, sorry, the glorious province, sounded like an outpost of Wales, facts which as a Welshman born, schooled and married (once at any rate) in that country brought me pleasure.
I knew of Bryn Mawr, the liberal arts college in Pennsylvania where Katharine Hepburn went to school. Whenever I heard its name I was reminded of its English translation – “big hill” or “great hill.” I noticed with pleasure as we approached Aronimink Golf Club that the road we were travelling on was named “St David’s Road.” Saint David, or Dewi Sant in Welsh, is Wales’ patron saint.
The fact is I have worked, lived and probably loved in the U.S. I relish the openness of its people, their friendliness and the undeserved gravitas they accord me simply because of the way I pronounce my vowels and the country in which I was born.
Further evidence of the connection between Pennsylvania and the land of my fathers is that before I left England I and my colleague Ron Green Jr. had received invitations for dinner at Llanerch Country Club where Dow Finsterwald won the 1958 PGA Championship. Llanerch, which in English means woodland clearing, glade or clear area, is also the name of a small vineyard in south Wales producing white wine. Located between Philadelphia and the city of Lancaster to the west, Llanerch Country Club prompts memories of Lancaster, England, and of the bloody 15th century civil Wars of the Roses between the English houses of Lancaster and York.
What is it about me and the United States? I adore three-day visits to Sand Hills Golf Club in Nebraska and rounds at Maidstone Golf Club on Long Island. I applaud the ability to turn right at a red traffic light in the U.S. and I enjoy any one of the hundreds of Waffle Houses in that country where, as regular as clockwork, I order two eggs sunny side up with hash browns and strong coffee and grape jelly to put on my brown toast.
The fact is I have worked, lived and probably loved in the U.S. I relish the openness of its people, their friendliness and the undeserved gravitas they accord me simply because of the way I pronounce my vowels and the country in which I was born. Little wonder that my mother, knowing my love for that country, called me a Yankophile.
So going to Aronimink, where Gary Player won the 1962 PGA Championship, the last to be held there, was in prospect about as far from heavy lifting as it was possible to be. And when I arrived on Monday evening the weather was welcoming to this visitor from the old country: it was grey and overcast, much as it had been when I left Britain that morning.
But on Tuesday morning, the sun soon burned the grey drabness away. In the bright, clear light, the rolling hills and wooded valleys of William Penn’s state revealed themselves and the stone clubhouse looked as sturdy as the rocks from which it had been built. There was nary a cloud in the sky and the old lady, designed originally by Donald Ross and touched up by Gil Hanse, looked magnificent. Her outstretched arms were wide open and welcoming, her eyes sparkling, ready for a dance.
William Penn probably didn’t know too much about rolling golf terrain, fierce bunkers and demanding greens of a course named after native Americans in the state, whoops, glorious province, he founded. But we do know what Rory McIlroy thinks of this historic venue because I asked him. Here is what he said:
“I like the style of golf. I like the bunkering. There’s a lot of bunkers. I think it provides quite a nice bit of variety with shorter par-4s, a couple of longer par-4s. The par-3s, there’s three pretty long ones and a shorter one.
“It’s, basically, bash driver down there and then figure it out from there.” – Rory McIlroy
“I think in this day and age I’m not sure if it’s going to test all aspects of your bag. There’s going to be a lot of – again, as I said, strategy off the tee is pretty nonexistent.
“It’s, basically, bash driver down there and then figure it out from there, which I think is a lot of these newer – newly renovated [courses] – I think about Oak Hill in 2023, here. When these traditional golf courses take a lot of trees out, it makes strategy not as much of a concern off the tee.
“But the greens are – as I said at the start, the greens are the main focus this week, and I think getting yourself in the right sections of the greens, making sure you leave yourself below the hole for the most part. That’s the key this week.
“Again, I’ve only played four competitive rounds here. I don’t know the place that well to give you a great answer on what I like about it, but Philadelphia’s a wonderful golfing city, a lot of great golf courses, and this is certainly one of them.”
These words carry weight because of who spoke them. If McIlroy will excuse the expression, they come from the horse’s mouth. “A wonderful golfing city. A lot of great golf courses and this is certainly one of them.” Take a bow William Penn.
Take a bow Philadelphia, City of Brotherly Love. You deserve it.