Philadelphia Cricket Club

[TEPaul]

Tillinghast's old Philadelphia Cricket course (Wissahichon) is a wonderful old course and the club now has a new Hurzdan & Fry course (Militia Hill) next to it making it 36 holes at their Flourtown site.

I often wondered why the new course wasn't built to Tillinghast's plans at the Flourtown site.

Yesterday I was told by someone at the course that Tillinghast's original 36 hole plan was obviously two courses but the first course (Wissahichon) on the original 36 hole plan was not at all the same as the 18 hole one we've always known!

That's very interesting and explains why the second course wasn't built to Tillinghast's plans--obviously it couldn't have been!

Has anyone ever seen Tillinghast's original 36 hole plan for Philly Cricket's Flourtown site? Apparently the club has the plan!

But one other thing is impressive about Philly Cricket Club at Flourtown and that is that the club thought to keep that additional land all these years to build the second course someday!

[Matt_Davenport]

Tom,
It is remarkable that Philly Cricket held the land for this long given the state of residential development in Eastern Montgomery county; however let's consider the surrounding land uses.  How many people would wish to live next to a quarry operation?  The amount of dust, noise, traffic related to the quarry operation is significant.  The other neighbor is Fort Washington State Park.  There are many LARGE, somewhat pretentious homes surrounding the neighboring property.  

I believe the Cricket Club utilizes water from the quarry for irrigation purposes.  I wonder if the quarry ever ceases to be productive what the re-use of this land will produce.  That could be an interesting scenario.

[Tom Doak]

TE Paul:  Have you played the course yet?  Gil Hanse and I both tried for that job, so neither one of us would really be able to form a fair opinion of it.

Someone on the board at Stonewall told me last month that if our course came in on budget, we'd do the whole thing for less $ than Militia Hill went OVER their budget!  Can that be true?

[SPDB]

I'd be curious to see those plans, too. The current name of the new course, Militia Hill, is Tillinghast's convention. He was, if I am not mistaken, a member of Philly Cricket, which makes his original plan all the more interesting.

Curiously, H&F have claimed that there course embodies a number of Tillie design principles, particularly the bunkering, which they claim resembles that of SFGC. I'd be curious to evaluate that claim for myself.

18 at Philly cricket (Wissahickon/Flourtown), although changed over the years, is still one of my favorite closers.

[TEPaul]

Tom Doak:

I do remember hearing that you tried for that job and I know that the club also contacted Coore and Crenshaw--who couldn't fit it into their schedule at that time.

As for the cost of the Militia Hill course, I did hear what the projected cost of the course was and also what it ended up costing but I don't think I'm going to throw those numbers around on here. To say it went over budget, if what I heard was accurate, would be putting it mildly though. I believe the permitting etc end of things was a real headache too! And yes I did play Militia Hill yesterday.

I would very much like to see Tillinghast's original 36 hole plan and obviously from that it would be possible to see what Tillinghast may have done on the Wissahichon course from that original 36 hole plan and probably if Hurzdan & Fry used any of Tillinghast's routing or hole designs (from the second course Tillie never built) to do the new Militia Hill course.

[Mark_Fine]

Tom Paul,
What did you think of the Militia Hill course?  I don't have the time to type like you but I will say I was not that impressed.  His bunkering style just wears on me.  The first hole with all those grass tongues hanging down in the bunkers    He gets overly dramatic when he doesn't need to.
What did you think?
Mark

[Matt_Ward]

Dana Fry will be at Sand Barrens (NJ) on Monday for a media day outing and I'll be sure to ask him a number of questions that have been raised on this thread.