Cobbs is a track with which I have some familiarity. I know the course and the neighborhood and the surrounding courses... and that cash cow driving range too. I'm also watching trends like First Tee as I'm concerned about growing the game. Cobbs has a huge history, not only as a product of Hugh Wilson's genius and generosity (Big question for the first tee at Cobbs is, "What other course on Cobbs Creek did this designer create?") but as a tournament venue and in particular as a site for numerous United Golf Association events, including the UGA National Championship. The UGA (think Bill Spiller, Charlie Sifford, and Ted Rhodes) was the African American pro golf circuit before the exclusionary PGA bylaw was repealed in the 1960s. I've always thought about how First Tee is a wonderful idea, growing the game in the inner city. What if First Tee and say a talented Tour player of color who could use a serious PR makeover got together to make Cobbs into a National Center, a UGA museum, a training ground for urban kids, and a city showpiece like Harding Park in Frisco, like Audubon in New Orleans, like Torrey Pines and The Black, like Brackenridge in San Antonio and Cedar Crest in Dallas? Cedar Crest is a great parallel circumstance, a very nice, Golden Age track, hardly in the best part of town, but an anchor for the community and a marvelous asset for the city. Cobbs could be all that and more! Forbidden Fairways (Sinnette, C.H., 1998) is very complimentary. So far as I'm concerned, James Finnegan sums it well in his Centennial Tribute to Golf In Philadelphia, in regards the current Cobbs (for the past 50+ years) design "... a genuinely worthy eighteen, especially when tackled from the blues..."
I read the Joe Logan piece. I know the course at 6660 yards and there are some quite memorable holes, among them the short fours at 3, 8, and 14. Three requires a lay up and a pitch to a narrow green, ably defended by the creek. Eight is a marvelously bunkered, 311 yard proposition, now having seen some of Mike Cirba's old photo file evidence of the original bunkerng, I can only hope to see it restored to those conditions. Fourteen dares the player to fade a tee ball around the corner of a tree line and a well struck shot could land on that green just 284 yards away. The best hole on the course (alternatively the hole that gets my shorts in a bunch quickest) is the fifth hole, advertised as a par 4 at 493 yards. In truth, it won't be a 493 yard hole until somebody pushes the tee back into the woods a bit and it may never be a par 4... four and a half maybe! Holes 9 through 13, which would seem to be 17, 7, 8, 9, and 11 in the original routing, are as solid a cluster of 21 strokes to par as there are anywhere in the section in a stretch of 5 holes. Those yardages run 449, 447, 393, 638, and 486! The problems at Cobbs include the wash outs along the creek after heavy rainfall, a couple blind shots, and the awkward green setting at #6 and that last problem might be remedied by reverting to specs and using the old par three that played into the current range area. Tom is correct in his listing of "better tracks in Philly circa 1916" but how fair is it to select five or six world-class clubs for purposes of comparing a municipal track?
I like Mike Sweeney's supposition that the Mayor must know how to go about fund raising since Nutter is a Jesuit educated kid. What if the Mayor, USGA, GCA, Chris Lange, and First Tee chased after Tiger with a proposition that could affect thousands of urban kids and vast numbers of players who share the idea of preserving the game's heritage and at the same time helping to grow the game properly? It would make for one hellaciously good piece of news at Aronomink this summer and it could help repair his image quite a bit.