Philadelphia Cricket Club Impressions and Discourse Reactions

Joseph LaMagna: There’s a lot to digest from the past four days of PGA Tour action at Philadelphia Cricket Club. Unsurprisingly, the tournament evoked a wide range of takes on social media, ranging from appreciation of the golf course to rollback thoughts to assertions that we should never return to old, classic venues. And, of course, my favorite: we need to narrow fairways, grow rough, and add trees to combat the distance problem. To which I’d reply, why have fairways at all? Why even design a golf course? Why not just host tournaments in fields of rough and trees? The winner could be 20-over. Distance problem solved, right? I digress. 

Garrett, as somebody who is not only fond of Golden Age architecture but is well-studied and an expert on the subject, what is your reaction to the discourse that has ensued related to PCC?

Garrett Morrison: I’ll again resist the label of “expert.” I’m better understood as a guy who talks to experts. Anyway, you asked about the discourse around Philadelphia Cricket Club.

I guess it sort of dissipated as the week went on? The Mid-Atlantic region got some weather on Friday and Saturday, and as we know, weather is one of the few remaining defenses that any golf course can muster against today’s elite players and their… protein-rich diets. So the low scoring we saw at PCC on Thursday didn’t continue throughout the tournament. The course held up fine — better than TPC Craig Ranch, not as well as Augusta National. I’m sure this came as a disappointment to those who seemed eager early in the week to pounce on “course architecture nerds” and their woke tree-management programs.

The backlash against Philly Cricket Club (and, by proxy, all Golden Age courses that dare to host PGA Tour events after undergoing restoration work) peaked right after Rory McIlroy said something in his Wednesday press conference that lent itself to both aggregation and misinterpretation: “These new[ly] renovated old-school courses, like the strategy is just hit driver everywhere and then figure it out from there. That’s sort of the strategy of this place this week.” What a gift this sound bite was to those who dislike the fairway-widening, green-enlarging, tree-removing type of renovation that Keith Foster conducted at PCC in 2014!

Of course, McIlroy did not mean to criticize the venue. As he clarified on Friday, he sees bomb-and-gouge as a consequence of equipment, not just architecture: “If the golf ball just went a little shorter, this course would be awesome. Not that it isn’t awesome anyway, but just right now, with the distances we hit it, it’s probably 500-600 yards too short. It would be amazing to play courses like this the way the architect wanted you to play them.” For mysterious reasons, this comment appeared to receive scant attention from the Golden Age skeptics who were so trigger-happy on social media last Wednesday.

So what’s my reaction to all of this discourse? It’s unserious. It’s mostly driven by people who are more interested in scoring a few cheap X points than in exploring ways to reestablish the balance between golfer and course at the top levels of the game. Yes, the Wissahickon Course at Philly Cricket Club is too short to provide a complete examination of a male pro’s ability, especially since the course doesn’t — and wasn’t designed to — take driver out of the player’s hands. But that’s equally true of almost all PGA Tour venues, including ones built far more recently than 1922. So until the equipment issue is addressed, we can’t expect most courses to move Rory McIlroy off of his “hit driver everywhere and then figure it out from there” approach.

What we did get this past week, however, was a rare glimpse at a well-preserved example of a great architect’s work. Can we at least be happy about that?

Straka Gets the Job Done

By Joseph LaMagna

Onto the action itself, Sunday delivered a slice of the PGA Tour at its best: the vast majority of the best players in the world competing on a phenomenal golf course in a major metro area with a deep-rooted golf history. Philadelphia — and the American Northeast more generally — deserves priority in the professional golf calendar. Take TPC Craig Ranch’s spot!  

Late on Sunday, a three-way battle unfolded between Sepp Straka, Shane Lowry, and Justin Thomas — three bluechippers with proven pedigrees. Ultimately, Straka pulled out the win thanks to a tidy birdie on the 15th and a gutsy par from the fairway bunker on the 514-yard 18th, the second toughest hole of the week.

The win is Straka’s second of the calendar year (American Express), fourth PGA Tour title overall, and the strongest field he’s conquered to date. At age 32, the Austrian is playing the best golf of his career and tracking to play a prominent role for Team Europe at Bethpage in September. In the meantime, he’ll have a few bites at the major championship apple, including this week at Quail Hollow where he finished T-8 in last year’s Wells Fargo (now Truist) Championship. 

From a golf course perspective, a few takeaways will stick with me from the Tour’s trip to the Wissahickon Course at Philly Cricket Club. The first is how refreshing it is to watch professional golfers navigate greens that feature real slope. Players had to start putts well outside of the hole, a rarity on the PGA Tour. That’s a much more compelling examination of putting than the softened “fair” slopes Tour players are accustomed to seeing. 

Secondly, this week further highlighted how setups like PCC are friendly to wild tee shots, which gets to the crux of McIlroy’s aforementioned commentary. Many old — and, to be clear, many modern — golf courses don’t severely penalize wide misses. Torrey Pines, Winged Foot, Oak Hill, and Detroit Golf Club are all classified in this bucket. On these types of golf courses, wide misses do not meet costly fates like finding an out-of-bounds area. Instead, they just find rough, trampled down spectator areas or tournament infrastructure that can result in a free drop. Frequently these penalties are less steep than missing the fairway by a matter of feet.

When analyzing pro golf courses, too much attention is generally paid to fairway width and rough height, and not nearly enough on the penalty profile of wide misses. The lack of penalty for wide misses on these golf courses shouldn’t be attributed to poor design. It’s typically a matter of limited space and a consequence of how far the golf ball travels. But it does mean you can bomb it and spray without much consequence. 

Third is the obvious benefit an equipment rollback would provide to the entertainment value of professional golf, though that’s a takeaway every week on Tour. Philly Cricket Club held up reasonably well when the wind kicked up, but that golf course would be an incredible test in an alternate universe where golf is governed responsibly.

My final lasting takeaway is the delight of a new — and in this case, architecturally-significant —  venue appearing on the PGA Tour, even if only temporarily. New courses infuse a fresh air of intrigue and anticipation in the lead-up to a tournament. Once play commences, people update their opinions, debate, and learn. The tournament takes on more life. 

Introducing new venues may not align with the Tour’s goal of making every event as repeatable and efficient as possible, but it should align with the Tour’s goal of making every event the best it can be. TPC Marriotts get the job done, but every once in a while it’s nice to visit a place with a little bit of soul.

‍This piece originally appeared in the Fried Egg Golf newsletter. Subscribe for free and receive golf news and insight every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.