Aronimink Golf Club

Favorite Hole 

No. 5, Par 3, 171 yards (Championship tees)

A short par 3 with a vexing green complex? Sign me up. These are often my favorite types of par 3s as they provide the opportunity for all skill levels to pull off a great shot or, conversely, to put a double-square on the scorecard. 

The green is the star of the show here with its multiple spines that create pockets for interesting hole locations. Miss in the wrong pocket and you’ll have a very challenging two-putt across the internal ridges. Additionally, any misses other than short will make par a difficult score.

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Overall Thoughts

Is Aronimink slept on as a golf course and tournament host? The expert panel of golf insiders from our inaugural pro golf survey certainly think so, but perhaps Aronimink is stuck in the shadow of Shinnecock Hills in this instance. I’m here to tell you that the Philadelphia club has a lot to offer that these insiders are simply overlooking. 

The nuts and bolts of Aronimink are what makes it special. Strip away the championship history and 170-plus bunkers and you’ll be left with a spectacular set of original Donald Ross greens and a routing that maximizes the rolling terrain. These two aspects are arguably the most important elements of a design and Ross knocked them out of the park. 

Routing 

Aronimink’s land is fairly typical for eastern Pennsylvania—brawny, rolling topography—but from the point of view of a flatland-midwesterner, it is pretty dramatic and undulating. The clubhouse rests at the top of a large hill that pitches steeply down to the sink, a term coined by our very own Andy Johnson. Then on the opposite side of the sink, the land begins to gently rise again, thus creating this low point in the center of the property. While this topography alone doesn’t jump off the page as spectacular, the sequencing and way each hole interacts with the site’s landforms is where we see Ross’ routing genius. 

The first three holes ride the ridgelines overlooking the bowl and then the fourth and fifth plunge you down to the bottom. The sixth plays straight back up to the high ridgeline then the seventh plays perpendicular to the steep slope to create an awesome, reverse-camber short par 4. A drop shot at the par-3 eighth returns you to the bottom before the long uphill par-5 ninth returns you to the top of the hill and clubhouse. I’ll save you some time and words by saying that the back nine then goes on to do something very similar. What really makes this type of routing stand out is the slight variations and arrangement of the hole corridors within the landscape. There’s a great balance of sidehill, downhill, ridge to ridge, and uphill holes, all used at different lengths. Moreover, the sequencing allows for an achievable walk rather than a strenuous hike. I don’t know if there is a better routing available on this plot of land, but what’s clear is that this well-thought-out base structure sets up the rest of the course for success.

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Greens

Aronimink has something very few golf courses can claim: 18 original Donald Ross greens. For a golf course nearly 100 years old, it's quite rare to have all the original greens fully intact, let alone from one of the game's greatest designers. The recent restoration efforts from Hanse Golf Design have brought them all to life. By expanding putting surfaces back to their original extent, more strategic variety has been added through new hole locations. Like many Ross greens, there is a general back-to-front tilt across the course, but it’s the spines, shoulders, and ridges that create interest as well as vexing recovery shots. Many of these green contours string from the perimeter of the surfaces into the center, creating distinctive pockets as mentioned on the fifth. This not only creates difficult lag putts across the undulations, but it truly penalizes misses in the wrong spots and places a premium on finding the putting surface to minimize big numbers. Furthermore, each green has its own personality and variation, but the collective feels totally in tune for a coherent theme throughout. 

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Generally, I think Aronimink falls victim to the greatness of its famous neighbors. It may not have golf holes quite as dramatic as the 16th and 17th at Merion a few miles away, but it has a sustained quality from beginning to end that keeps the golfer engaged and stimulated. The greens are fantastic and the fact that they have withstood the test of time and all of modern golf's advances is even more impressive.

1 Egg 

(How We Rate Courses)

Aronimink receives its egg from the holistic balance of its land, design, and presentation. It never gets super high or dips too low, just a consistent high caliber from Nos. 1 to 18.

Course Tour

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