March 8, 1925 review of St. Davids by J.E. Ford (North American)

[Joe Bausch]

Very fun read here on St. Davids, in the previous iteration before they moved to their current location.  For those in the area, the original St. Davids was located pretty much where the Radnor Hotel and Microcenter/Genuardi's shopping complex sit (yes, the course spanned across Lancaster Avenue).

[Mike_Cirba]

And right down the road from Indiana Joe(nes).  ')

[Mike_Cirba]

And...one hole still exists sorta...

[Steve_ Shaffer]

What golf course today would highlight that it " was built to please the club's majority of ordinary players?" Does anyone know of a new course that would say something like that?

[Joe Bausch]

And...one hole still exists sorta...

Yes, right along Iven Ave near the Radnor Township Admin building is an area the township has dedicated as a driving range (bring your own golf balls).  There is the remains of a green in the corner, up against Radnor Chester Road and quite close to the east end of the newish Radnor Trail.

[Mike_Cirba]

Joe,

Any pics of the hole?

I felt a Tillinghastian influence and I bet Phil would love to see it if he hasn't already.

[Joe Bausch]

Joe,

Any pics of the hole?

I felt a Tillinghastian influence and I bet Phil would love to see it if he hasn't already.

I don't have any pics of that green, strangely enough.  But I only pass by it twice a day, so I think I can grab one soon (or when I practice there later this week). 

[Mike_Cirba]

I thought you might think of that! 

[TEPaul]

Obviously this article is about the old St. David's course, right? Checking C&W it appears the new course and present course began in 1927.

For the entire history of this club and probably the details of its move to another site we do have an expert on it in town in Pete Trenham.

While I have always been sort of hazy on the details of the later move it somehow is inextricably interwined with my own forebears and their land in that area as well as what seems to have been something of a divisive pullout on the original St David's club and course and the creation of Gulph Mills GC beginning in 1916.

I believe, for a time at least, the membership of the original St. David's course and club expected some of those who created Gulph Mills GC to stick with them and basically do for them what turned out to be Gulph Mills G.C.

But it's pretty hazy to me----there were a lot of dynamics going on with that club back then and there original property and eventual move. What I would like to find out someday though is where the boundaries originally were on the 230 acre tract of what was originally Woodcrest (the estate) some of which is now Cabrini College and particularly if that original Woodcrest land now encompassed all of what is today's St. David's G.C.

[TEPaul]

It might be somewhat OT to the subject of this particular thread but at some point it would be worthwhile to begin to try to explain just how completely interwined the history of the last 130 years or so of the entire Main Line (originally known as the 40,000 acre Welsh Tract), its massive estates and most all its golf courses are to the purview and complex corporate dealing of the Pennsylvania Railroad Corporation. It's a pretty amazing history and story. I believe it is true to say that at some point, perhaps around the turn of the century the Pennsylvania Railroad Corporation was the biggest corporate capitalization in the world.

There is no question at all that the history and evolution of the St Davids Club is completely wrapped up with that corporate jugernaut in one way or another. And of course so are many other courses including Merion GC at Ardmore and I'm sure Gulph Mills GC too, and perhaps most all the rest in and around Philadelphia's Main Line.

It was both said and written that if you were a true Main Liner around both sides of the turn of the century you first worshipped The Pennsylvania Railroad, and then your God, Country, City and State next! 

[Joe Bausch]

There is an excellent 14 page PDF on the history of St. Davids, with lots of photos, at the club's website.  Here is the link to download the file:

http://www.stdavidsgc.com/files/St%20DavidsHistory_3%2016%2009.pdf

[TEPaul]

Joe:

Thanks for that link. Now I understand what happened.

There are some remarkable coincidences there that involved GMGC that I never realized. For instance, had SDGC's membership agreed in that meeting in the spring of 1916 to go along with A.J. Drexel Paul and the land the club had paid a $1,000 option on then today what is now Gulph Mills G.C. would have been the new course of St. David's Golf Club and GMGC would never have existed, at least not where it is.

In that case it would've also meant that SDGC course where it now is would never have existed. But what is also interesting to me that when A.J. Drexel Paul's SDGC membership turned down his idea to move the SDGC course to where GMGC now is, Paul apparently within a month or so interested about ten of his Merion GC fellow members in creating GMGC and they excercised the option on the land that SDGC had.

But even more ironic is that when SDGC about a decade later decided to finally move their course where did the end up but right on the Paul property that was Woodcrest (sold at that time (1925) to the Dorrance family of Campbell Soup Co. and part of the remaining land to SDGC. AJ Drexel Paul retained maybe 50 acres of the old Woodcrest estate that is now called Box Hill and which belongs to my first cousin A.J. Drexel Paul III (Tony Paul).

But again, going back even earlier the whole thing (the entire Main Line) was once a semi-unified massive grand land development plan (maybe 40,000 acres) essentially of the Pennsylvania Railroad Corp and all the people connected to it in various ways. Matter of fact, the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad Corp. even got into renaming some of the little old towns along their new Pennsylvania Railroad Main Line corridor with names that sounded more English. The town you now live in, Wayne, was formerly Louella, I think.