FLOURTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA | In an area rich with some of the finest golf courses anywhere, the Wissahickon course at Philadelphia Cricket Club sits softly on a sprawling patch of rolling hills a few miles northwest of the city still basking in the gritty glow of the Philadelphia Eagles’ Super Bowl victory three months ago.
It’s the kind of place that doesn’t chase attention. It’s more of an if you know, you know kind of place and for those who don’t know much beyond the club’s peculiar name – more on that in a moment – that will change this week with the Truist Championship, which is making a one-off appearance here while its usual host, Quail Hollow Club, prepares to host the PGA Championship next week.
As a $20-million signature event, the Truist Championship (formerly known as the Wells Fargo Championship) has almost all of the PGA Tour’s top players excepting world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, who is resting up between his record-tying win at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson last week and the season’s second major next week, and Billy Horschel, who announced Tuesday he will undergo hip surgery that will sideline him until at least late summer.
What’s different this week, beyond the new sponsor’s purple color scheme, is the venue. It’s rare that a golf course built in 1922 by a local course designer named A.W. Tillinghast can be new but it is to the tour players this week.
“It’s nice to go to a place that nobody has seen. Everyone is starting from zero. You see guys doing a little more prep work than they might usually do,” Gary Woodland said.
Let’s take a moment to explain the Philadelphia Cricket Club. It is actually three different golf courses – the oldest of which, St. Martins, hosted the 1907 and 1910 U.S. Opens but has since been converted into a quaint nine-hole track about five miles from the Wissahickon and Militia Hill courses.
Interest in cricket dwindled and the club discontinued the sport for many years until it was revived about 20 years ago and now has a band of disciples who continue to play at the club.
According to the club’s website, it is the oldest country club in the United States, having been founded by a group of University of Pennsylvania students who played cricket as youngsters in England and wanted to continue playing.
Interest in cricket dwindled and the club discontinued the sport for many years until it was revived about 20 years ago and now has a band of disciples who continue to play at the club.
After much discussion among members, the club embarked on a restoration of the Wissahickon course in 2013 led by Keith Foster, who convinced the club to adopt an aggressive tree removal program that opened a course that had been crowded by a century of tree growth. Green complexes were redesigned, grasses were changed and the result is a layout that has kept one foot in the past while putting the other foot in the present.
“Old school but refreshed,” is how Adam Scott described it.
The Wissahickon course isn’t entirely unfamiliar to golf course aficionados. It hosted what was then the Senior Players Championship won by Bernhard Langer in 2016 and last year it was host to the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship.
Bringing the PGA Tour in is a different matter. Only 17,500 spectators will be on site each day and to accommodate the logistics required for a tour event, the course has been substantially rerouted.
As such, the eighth hole will be the first hole this week and the last four holes normally play as Nos. 7-5-6-4. If that’s too many numbers, suffice to say it’s a stern finish.
The 15th hole will get plenty of attention because of what Tillinghast called “the great hazard” which is a collection of 13 oddly shaped bunkers bisecting the par-5 fairway approximately 330 yards from the tee. The idea is to force players who miss the fairway into a decision about whether to try and carry the mess with their second shots but given the length tour players hit the ball, the great hazard is likely to serve as little more than eye candy this week.
“It’s probably a little short for where we are with technology but the course is fun. The greens have a ton of slope.” – Gary Woodland
“It’s old school. It’s a cool venue, a massive venue,” Woodland said. “It’s probably a little short for where we are with technology but the course is fun. The greens have a ton of slope.
“It will depend on the setup. If it gets blowing some of the pins they could have, it could be a little dicey.”
If you’re into such things, the oddsmakers are leaning toward a winning score of 20-under par considering the greens are soft from recent rains and the 7,119-yard, par-70 layout finds itself in the familiar position of trying to hold off technology.
“Very old school. Right in front of you. A good shot’s a good shot and a bad shot’s a bad shot. That’s the way it’s supposed to be in my book. No tricks,” Lucas Glover said.