The Philadelphia Cricket Club hosted the ninth U.S. Amateur Four-ball championship May 25-29, 2024, and we thought it would be appropriate to review William Flynn’s association with the Club.
Though founded in 1854 as one of the oldest clubs in America devoted to sports, it wasn’t until 1883 that the itinerant cricketers settled down to its own grounds in the St. Martin’s section of Chestnut Hill. The Philadelphia Cricket Club was an early adopter of golf in Philadelphia, opening its first nine-hole course in 1895. The Philadelphia Cricket Club is one of four founding members of the Golf Association of Philadelphia (1897).
Philadelphia Cricket Club 4th Hole, 1895
The course, on leased land from the Houston family, was laid out by golf professional Sanders Handford. An account of the 1895 layout in the November 2, 1895, issue of The American Cricketer mentioned the following hole yardages:
Hole 1: 254 yards
Hole 2: 454 yards
Hole 3: 114 yards
Hole 4: 182 yards
Hole 8: 175 yards
Hole 9: 325 yards
The course was redesigned and expanded to eighteen holes in 1897 by Willie Tucker and opened for play in 1898. Handford started the course north of the cricket grounds, then northeast across Hartwell Avenue, down into a valley, west through woodlands, then returning into the valley and then up the hill towards the grounds where the horse shows were held before finishing in front of the Wissahickon Inn.
Two United States Opens were played on the St. Martin’s links. The 1907 championship was won by Alec Ross, the younger brother of Donald Ross (who finished 10th) after posting four sub-80 rounds. The 1910 US Open was won by Alex Smith over his younger brother Macdonald Smith and 18-year-old John McDermott who would go on to win the next two US Opens as the first American born champion while remaining the youngest champion of all time.
The golf course was leased to the Cricket Club from the Henry H. Houston estate. The records of the estate are held in the archives of the University of Pennsylvania. The collection includes a May 24, 1924 redesign plan for the nine-hole golf course by William Flynn. Some of the estate land was developed for residential use and the club was considering a redesign that would account for lost land. The plans were never acted upon, yet it is interesting to consider the nine-hole course with a counter-clockwise routing for the first six holes and then an inner loop for the final three holes in a clockwise direction. The effects of wind would have been constantly changing throughout the routing progression. The individual hole designs include three holes with interrupted fairways, two back-to-back par 3s, and an overall sophisticated bunker scheme.
Philadelphia Cricket Club, Wissahickon Golf Course
Golf at the Philadelphia Cricket Club grew in popularity and along with the desire for the Club to own the land for golf, the Club looked for an additional site for an eighteen-hole course. In 1920, the Club turned to Albert Warren Tillinghast, a Club member, to design the new course. He initially planned for two eighteen-hole courses, but only one was built and opened in 1922. In 1928, a mere six years later, William Flynn was hired to revise the course and attend to significant turf problems, including an infestation of clover. Flynn’s expertise in design, construction, and agronomy must have appealed to the Club. Under Flynn’s direction, the fairways were completely covered with a new fertilizer, reseeded, and top-dressed. Several holes were redesigned as well including the addition of many bunkers which added to the strategy and increased the challenge of the course…
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