While I am not overly enamored with the Cricket Club, it is does have some very nice holes, it is just as a whole I find the course not quite up to some formidable competition in the eastern PA area. If I were to rank courses, it would fall just below my top 10. I find the short par 3s (3 and 10) very good holes but many of the holes run back and forth in the same orientation (1,2,4,5,7,9,11,12,14,16) so there is little triangulation on ground that had a lot of open space when it was built. William Flynn reworked a number of holes in 1927, a mere 4 years after it opened for play. Flynn added a number of bunkers around the course and did not touch the first three holes. He removed chocolate drops on the par 5 7th (was the 4th in the old routing progression) and extended the bunker in front across the green. On the old par 3 5th, the current 8th, Flynn reduced the length of play by some 40 yards where it became a 140 yard shot to carry the stream rather than 180 which a lot of members could not pull off. On the former 6th, current 9th hole, Flynn had the tee left of its present location and had some carry bunkers guarding the left side, a much more interesting tee shot. At some point, probably in the 30s, the bunkers were removed and the tee shot played from next to the railway line. There were no changes to the old 7th and 8th, these are the current 4th and 5th holes. The old 9th, the current 6th had a new tee built to the right of the old one and Flynn put traps in along the right side of the fairway, the remnants of which can be seen today. Flynn enlarged the greenside bunkers as well. On the short 10th hole, Flynn raised the tee 2 feet to show more of the green and the fairway in front of the green hollowed out to show an enlarged bunker which used to be concealed. There was no change on 11. On the par 5 12th, Flynn moved the tee to the right so that the first shot was over the quarry rather than around it. This created a truly dramatic shot that was unfortunately removed when the tee was put back. Flynn put in the big right side fairway bunker on 13 that dictated play to the left. On the 14th, Flynn added fairway bunkers on either side of the landing area. The 15th and 16th were unchanged. On 17, Flynn put in a new tee a bit short and left of the old one. The 18th was left unchanged.
As for Aronimink, it is vastly improved under the direction of Ron Prichard. Yet still remains for the most part underappreciated as if it is having difficulty shedding its former image. I would definitely put it in the top 10 of eastern PA area courses, somewhere around 6 or 7 if I had to rank them. If anything I would say that it suffers from not enough variety. Tree removal opened up a lot of dramatic views and brought the wind more into play. The bunker work is simply outstanding. The holes are routed well to all points of the compass and they always had some terrific greens. I think the variety in the par 4s is a bit narrow. Most of the 410-465 yard par 4s are straight away such as 1,3,4,10,11,12,15,18. 13 is also a straight away 390 yarder. But the changes in topography help differentiate the holes in some cases (1,10,11,18). The par 3s are very good in different directions with yardages of 173, 214, 202, 187. A nice short par 3 might have been nice to add variety. The 2 par 5s are of similar yardage with the direction of play different by 90 degrees. The greens are relatively benign but the mound on 16 running into the middle of the green is interesting.