I recently returned from a swing around Philly put together by a third party and want to report on what a pleasant and informative tour it surprisingly turned out to be. The variety and number of courses in this state/area can be a satisfying journey into design not readily available to most us.
Our first play was Liberty Natnl a 1990s Player course then onto Moselum Springs by G Fazio and host to the 67 womens open followed by both Stonewall Doak tracks after which we playe a Bobby Weed Gordon redo at White Manor CC with a finish at Aronimink. This is a rota no individual travelling to PA would consider but this serendipity moved us through a progression of designs.
Liberty was instructive of how not to use $14 million to build a golf course. Great condition and nice property and facility but only validated my wonder at what Gary Player design actually brings to the table: what could there elevator speech be?
Moselum Springs was a lovely expierience of when golf was simpler and a counter that all mid 20th C design is misguided or brutalist. Fazio drapes the course over a totally rural big sidehill setting and claims the predominate slope as his dominant feature in fairways routings and green movement which produces it's own subtle charm. The understated schist rock low slung clubouse is always in view. The routing is like a small course in the highlands called Pitlochry ( a thought I was carrying when an unsolicited remark of the same nature was offerred up during play).
Stonewall North was my choice as I can no longer play 36. This is a masterpiece of every shot requiring choosing the proper angle. I found a thread where TD offers that these are among the wildest greens his crew has ever built. The stonewalls and wispy fescues and widely visible small landform punctuation marks deliver a constantly moving frozen motion affect that subtley induces interest and awareness through the whole round.
White Manor was a HUGE surprise. The least functional, and 70s tainted, clubhouse anyone has spent that much money on very much overshadowed by a delightfully executed renovation by Bobby Weed. His bunkering is some of the best I have seen. Beautifully placed and predominantly shallow bottomed with just enought friont curl to support that wispy meadow grass brow that doesn't ensnarl shots but produces a visual hurdle hard to ignore. Other very finely done small features abound and the fourth hole is a very sporty sorta bottle hole that ranks among the very finest of transition holes I have seen in a long while.
We finished at the meticulouosly restored championsip course , Aronimink. Such a treat and I will employ the elegant stately matron metaphor here. Great bones carry a sortof soft strength and elegance. No real surprises but lots of very attractive good stuff.
So there you have it. Most of these are treated on other threads here. I mostly wanted to encoursage folks playing in PA to not only consider all those Marquee names when exploring there. Dig a little and discover. We did...60's, 90's, 2000's, minimalist classic, and 30's classic minimalist. Fantastic!