I don't have too much time today, but I did want to make a few quick points before we get too far afield.
1) Any monies funding restoration would need to come from private contributions, not municipal. The city doesn't have the money nor should they spend it here if they did.
2) This would NOT be an attempt to create another Bethpage or worse yet, the TPC of Cobb's Creek.
This is NOT being done to host major tournaments of any kind, although it's not inconceivable that a SR., Woman's, or Junior event of some type might be accommodated, but that would be incidental.
3) The idea would be to do this through concerned community capital private investment. The idea is that local Philadelphia residents would not pay a penny more in greens fees and in fact we would greatly encourage programs for inner-city juniors such as $1 Mondays on the Karakung course.
4) The idea would be to make the course more attractive and challenging as a place to play for the suburban or out-of-town visitor who would pay a modest surcharge to ensure upkeep.
5) The idea would be to leverage the incredible golf and multi-cultural history in a number of ways that tied the golf course more closely to the community and became a source of civic pride.
6) Our goals are EXACTLY what we believe the goals of the founders were. To provide a high-level, challenging, beautiful golf course, affordably available to all the citizens of the city and surrounds, where they can enjoy the benefits of the game, and where future champions of the city at all levels can attempt to improve their skills. We believe that we can honor and preserve their legacy.
We have one advantage they didn't however. We can also honor the incredible history that was made on those grounds over the past 100 years, both architectural, cultural, racial, and athletic.
On another note, we could probably esoterically debate for pages on whether someone believes CC was/is architecturally significant, but I believe that to be a waste of time and the bottom line is this;
If in fact Cobb's Creek is not worthy of restoration because of some implied inferior architecture, that should be a self-correcting process and those of us who have invested time and interest would have been laughed out of our hometown.
Instead, we have had a ton of interested observers contact us from all levels of the game, which provides encouragement that we are on the right track.
For now, I'll leave you with this 1920's article;