Philly Cricket Wissahickon photo tour: all holes are up

[Tom ORourke]

Do you have a final, albeit approximate, count of how many trees came out?

[JESII]

Joe,

Great thread.


Gib and Powell,

Thanks for contributing.


Philadelphia Cricket is one of the best places on the planet.

[Dan Herrmann]

By the way, I loved the flags too.  Very classy.

[Gib Carpenter]

Joe, great job with the thread & tour.

It has been quite a ride thus far & the support of the GCA community has been tremendous & meaningful. We are all so fortunate to be  stewards of these great classic courses & I truly hope that we can reconvene in a few years time to enjoy the Foster restoration.

Thanks everyone.

[Mark McKeever]

Agreed.  A great finishing hole and a daunting second shot from the top down to the green.  I can't wait to continue watching the golf course evolve.  The only way I can accurately describe this golf courese is by calling it "timeless".

Mark

[Wade Whitehead]

I could play Philadelphia Cricket every day.

18 is a blast but I don't think I've ever made a par there.

WW

[Kyle Harris]

The hole is broken - it's playable from down the first fairway....

[D_Malley]

Great looking photo tour of one of my favorite courses in Phila. area.
The course looks better that I have ever seen it.
They have come a long way with their tree management philosophy.
Especially for a club that once had a giant tree growing inside their clubhouse and right through the roof.

Keep the momentum going!

[Jason Topp]

Does anyone know what a tree removal operation like this costs?

John,

Remarkably, the extensive tree work cost the club very little, I know the final $$ amount, but out of respect, I'm not sure that the club wants that info out in the public. The Cricket Club has a new young Supt. who put together a great plan for the club.  The large majority of tree work was done in house.  From what I was told, the club purchased some additional equipment to do the job correctly and contracted with an outside lumber company that purchased the wood and removed it.  Although there were many pines taken down, there was also a lot of large hardwood specimen trees. The club did use a professional tree service for some large trees in areas that posed some saftey concerns.  

Did they do the work during the golf season?  We are slowly removing trees but our efforts were hampered this year by heavy snow immediately after the course closed.  I want to push to do the work during the summer as an ongoing project when we have a larger crew on staff but that has not been the practice in the past.

[mike_malone]

 The one tree I miss is the one that used to have the clubhouse porch around it.

[Powell Arms]

Jason,

The vast majority of the work was done in the off season.  With two courses, we were able to close Wissahickon around early Nov 2009 and accommodate all off-season play on the Militia Hill course.  We the course reopened in the spring, the grounds staff was very focused on removing the last evidence of the removal - laying sod over the areas where trees had been removed and stumps ground out. 

Joe, thank you for a great thread and taking the time to put all of this together.  We certainly hope that this thread isnt an "after" but just a step in the process to the final product.

Powell

Does anyone know what a tree removal operation like this costs?

John,

Remarkably, the extensive tree work cost the club very little, I know the final $$ amount, but out of respect, I'm not sure that the club wants that info out in the public. The Cricket Club has a new young Supt. who put together a great plan for the club.  The large majority of tree work was done in house.  From what I was told, the club purchased some additional equipment to do the job correctly and contracted with an outside lumber company that purchased the wood and removed it.  Although there were many pines taken down, there was also a lot of large hardwood specimen trees. The club did use a professional tree service for some large trees in areas that posed some saftey concerns.  

Did they do the work during the golf season?  We are slowly removing trees but our efforts were hampered this year by heavy snow immediately after the course closed.  I want to push to do the work during the summer as an ongoing project when we have a larger crew on staff but that has not been the practice in the past.

[Tim Gavrich]

I'm reviving this one because our golf coach informed us that we'll now be playing the Pennsylvania Big Five Classic on the Wissahickon course on April 4th, instead of the Militia Hill course as was initially the plan.  The reason given is that the maintenance staff thinks the Wissahickon will be in better shape for us on that day.  Awesome to hear that such a distinguished club is concerned with giving us their best-conditioned course to compete on.  I didn't think that I could be more excited than I already was, but I am.  I'll get to play my first Tillinghast course in two weeks.

Now that I've gushed, I do have a question that will make this thread-bump not completely useless, I hope: have any of the talked-about Keith Foster renovation plans been carried out at the Wissahickon since Mr. Bausch's excellent photos were taken?  Or will what we see in those be what my teammates and I see in a couple weeks?

Thanks!

--Tim

[Mark McKeever]

Joe's tour is pretty much what you are going to see.  The plans are still in progress from what everyone says, but as the course exists today, it will be a GREAT experience.

Mark

[D_Malley]

Tim,
I think you are referring to an invitational event run by univ. of penn

the big 5 classic is hosted by Temple and is held at Plymouth CC,  Oct. 7-9

[Joe Bausch]

Bump for newer GCA members, and those people thinking of coming into town for the Crump Cup.  Tentative Saturday afternoon golf on October 1 at Philly Cricket is being planned.  Contact me directly if interested and you did not respond already to the Crump Cup thread.

[Joe Bausch]

Bump jfthoi (just for the heck of it!).