I'll admit that when Philadelphia's Walnut Lane Municipal appeared in the "Courses By Country" section, I chuckled.
"Is that supposed to be a joke?", I thought. Pine Valley.... Merion.... Walnut Lane? Something's not right here. In fact one sourpuss in the comments section vowed never to log onto the site again because of just that. I, myself, had managed to avoid the par 62, 4500 yard muni for my 20 years of golfing in the region.
The 65 degree weather finally brought me out there today. I
was not disappointed. The review is accurate. This is a
fun, challenging course! Findlay cleverly uses the sometimes wild terrain well. A great mix of par threes and a number
of par fours demand precise shot-making. On the par 4's especially, some tilted fairways, as well as the encroaching specimen trees put pressure on you to hit accurate shots.
The conditions, given the season, and the type of course it is,
were about what I expected. All types of players with varying skills were there. (In fact the postman, in-semi uniform, that I played with had to run back to work to clock out at the end of the round!) And they all seemed convinced that their $12 was well-spent.
Everyone needs to play a few courses like this in order consider themselves a well-rounded student of the game. And no, it's not in the same class as the other courses featured on the site, but that's fine with me. If I didn't read about it here, I wouldn't have played it.