Sunnybrook GC (Gordons, 1956) in Plymouth Meeting, PA

[Mark McKeever]

Agreed!  An eagle on 10 is VERY impressive...

Mark

[Lester George]

How do you add an average of 3,000 s.f. to each green and keep the original Gordon design qualities? 

Lester

[Chris Roselle]

Bill:


Obviously with most open tournaments the odds are better that a professional will win it even though the Philadelphia Open is pretty interesting historically. Local amateur Jay Sigel did win it six times and amateurs have won it four times in the last eight years putting them at 50/50 in that timeframe.

However, with Pine Valley there has been an edge historically with players who really do know that golf course well (the so-called very important PV "experience factor"). One example recently was Pine Valley member Chris Lange who probably should have won it at Pine Valley in the last decade or so but he just unfortunately made two uncharacteristic mistakes at the very end (amateur Lange did win the Philly Open at PCC in 2004. I officiated at that tournament and I could actually tell he was working himself into a real edge at that one. Lange is a guy who sort of eats up course difficulty----eg it just doesn't bother him at all. In that Open at PCC in 2004 it was unusual in how many professionals were complaining about one difficulty or another about the course. To that Lange actually mentioned to me he felt that was going to give him an edge and sure enough it did). Another interesting amateur to keep an eye on is Pine Valley member Chip Lutz who like Lange is now a senior. In the last few years Lutz has actually been ranked as the #1 Senior Amateur in the world.

I will have my eye on this Scott Reilly though with his impressive "field separation" win at Sunnybrook recently!

Well said Tom

[Robert Mercer Deruntz]

The 1996 qualifier was indeed at Wyncote, where I won the playoff for the 2nd through 5th alternate spots. Unfortunately, there was no field changes, so it was a bad week to be an alternate.  A couple veteran players pullled off a  great prank on some of the younger players by photocopying the Pine Valley directions card and printing out invitations for the players to play there on Tuesday afternoon--supposedly quite a few players saw the gate house and nothing else. In 1995, my eagle was at Sunnybrook.  Philmont was a great experience, with wickedly fast and firm greens that week. 

[Doug Braunsdorf]

Member Play Day today, beautiful weather.  Great golf course.  

Results are on the GAP website.  I was T4.  

Sunnybrook has to be one of the most well-conditioned courses I have played.  Greens are treacherous.  Seemingly a lot quicker than at home (Greate Bay), and we have good, quick greens with plenty of contour.  Above the hole...yikes.  

Bunkers were simply outstanding to play from-fun, if playing from bunkers can be fun.  Some of the rough seemed like peanut butter.  

Everything Steve Shaffer said earlier was true.  Great condition, nice clubhouse (simple and comfortable in its elegance).  Some of the trees can be a little bit much at times, they could probably stand to lose a few handfuls of the ubiquitous spruce or whatever they may be.  

It seems like most of the par fives are meant to be approached with a short iron or wedge.  They are very well defended, and the greens do not seem designed to really accept shots with long iron or fairway woods/hybrids.  My observation, and I may be wrong.

Outside of Fairways GC (Warrington), this was my first Gordon.  I don't feel a lot of similarity with Flynn at all, or see much in the way of Flynn influence, just given that William Gordon was a member of Flynn's companies.  Thoughts?  

[Mark McKeever]

Doug,

The first thing that comes to mind when thinking Sunnybrook is how good the par 4's are out there.  Great variety and no two play the same.  Long brutes and shorter testers.  Coupled with a lot of really good greens.  2 is one of my favorite holes in Phildadelphia.

Mark

[Philip Caccamise]

I played there a few times in college, but never realized how high the slope was. Back in those "fearless" days, I guess I didn't care as much. I always found Philly Cricket down the street to be harder, despite the lower rating.

[Doug Braunsdorf]

Philip,  

  Interesting point on Wissahickon v. Sunnybrook.  

I was thinking, Sunnybrook sits on the side of a hill, whereas Wissahickon is in a lower-lying area, playing over generally flatter terrain.  
Cricket really fits my eye--one of those places [you] go and just feel comfortable and can let it rip.  

I feel Sunnybrook's greens were harder than I recall Cricket's.  This isn't a shot on Cricket, it's saying that at Sunnybrook, I found you had to take into account the slope of the green, internal contours, and also the prevailing slope of the hill.  

[Joe Bausch]

I toured Sunnybrook on Monday while an outing was going on.  My camera was in tow and here is the resulting album:

http://xchem.villanova.edu/~bausch/images/albums/Sunnybrook/

[Chris Roselle]

I toured Sunnybrook on Monday while an outing was going on.  My camera was in tow and here is the resulting album:

http://xchem.villanova.edu/~bausch/images/albums/Sunnybrook/

Joe, the 18th hole will now look alittle different after last nights storm...

https://twitter.com/SGC_Greens/statuses/484697316096749568

[Joe Bausch]

I toured Sunnybrook on Monday while an outing was going on.  My camera was in tow and here is the resulting album:

http://xchem.villanova.edu/~bausch/images/albums/Sunnybrook/

Joe, the 18th hole will now look alittle different after last nights storm...

https://twitter.com/SGC_Greens/statuses/484697316096749568

Yay!  There is another 100 or more of those spruce trees I would love to see go down at Sunnybrook.