Chocolate Drops: The Most Important U.S. Public Golf Project of the Decade?

Hope you had a great Labor Day weekend, FEGC members!

For the first segment of this week’s Chocolate Drops, my colleague Will Knights subs in with some reflections on his recent visit to an under-construction Cobbs Creek Golf Club.

→ Philadelphians and Fried Egg Golf Podcast listeners will be familiar with the name Cobbs Creek. The city’s oldest public course, Cobbs Creek was a staple of the Philadelphia public golf scene for much of the 20th century before falling into disrepair. An initial restoration effort was upended by the pandemic in 2020, and the course ultimately closed its doors. But new hope has arrived in the formation of the Cobbs Creek Foundation, a fleet of donors, and a top-dollar renovation project. The effort to get the course back on its feet has been well documented—I would recommend this CBS Philadelphia clip on Tiger Woods’s involvement and Laz Versalles’s piece for Skratch—but what I didn’t know much about was the golf course itself. Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner are on tap to do the work, which is promising, but what does the land actually look like?

Two weeks ago, I stopped by Cobbs Creek to tour the property with superintendent Ben Dewan and the Cobbs Creek Foundation’s Colby Roberts. After spending 90 minutes on the property, I could see that Cobbs Creek has the potential to be a world-class course. With varied topography, elevation changes, and its namesake creek, the land is a stunner. It has a mixture of brawny features and intimate stretches.

The most dramatic area of Cobbs Creek will be at the convergence of Nos. 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 16, and 17, all of which will have at least a tee box or a green on the highest ridge of the property. Some of these holes, the par-3 12th and 17th, will play off the ridge; others, like Nos. 9 and 16, will climb up the hill in different ways; and the par-4 sixth will dogleg around the valley falloff. At the top of this ridge, you will be treated to a view of the Philadelphia skyline, a reminder of the land’s connection with the city. The south side of the property, where Cobbs Creek itself is located, needs some work before the golf holes come into focus, but it will eventually feature some memorable shots. The creek is integral to Nos. 3-5 and Nos. 12-13, coming into play on every shot on each hole. If used well, the deep valleys surrounding the creek could remind golfers of the ravines at Shoreacres. Finally, on the western edge of the site, there will be a pair of exciting short par 4s in Nos. 14 and 15.

I say this with no exaggeration: the renovation of Cobb’s Creek could be the most important American public golf project of the decade. The foundation has raised more than $100 million and set huge goals for the future of the facility and its economic impact on the area. I’m happy to report that the quality of the land justifies the ambition of these efforts. -Will Knights

→ In the latest episode of my podcast Designing Golf, historian David Normoyle shed some light on an issue that golf architecture nerds have debated for decades: who routed Cypress Point? Does Alister MacKenzie, the architect of record, deserve primary credit? Or did MacKenzie simply repurpose an initial routing created by Seth Raynor, who worked on the project until passing away in 1926?

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I packaged some of what Normoyle told me in this Twitter thread. Three big takeaways:

1. Contrary to popular belief, Raynor’s routing was never lost. It has been in the club’s possession all along, and it will be reproduced in Normoyle’s upcoming book.

2. MacKenzie basically retained Raynor’s placement of the four closing holes at Cypress Point. Keep in mind, though, that there weren’t many other ways to route those holes.

3. MacKenzie’s approach to the inland portion of the course—particularly Nos. 5-13—was quite different from Raynor’s (and, from the sounds of it, far superior).

I’m looking forward to David’s book. I think it will answer many long-standing questions about Cypress Point’s design and perhaps put to rest the (occasionally careless) speculation about Raynor’s involvement that some have engaged in over the years.

→ Social roundup:

• Grassing is underway at Royal Perth Golf Club after a renovation by Clayton, DeVries & Pont.
• Brian Schneider is making progress on a restoration of Donald Ross’s Woodhill Country Club in Minnesota.
• Club de Golf Grand-Mère in Quebec, a Walter Travis design, is undergoing a restoration by Andy Staples.‍
• Detroit Golf Club posted some drone footage of Tyler Rae’s ongoing historical renovation of the Donald Ross-designed North Course.