Country Club of Scranton (Old Course)

Favorite Hole

No. 14, par 5, 583 yards 

Travis had a penchant for routing golf holes over large hills or slopes and placing the green on the backside of said hill. Scranton has four examples of this notion in the sixth, seventh, 10th, and 14th holes. While the seventh and 10th are just as provocative as 14, I thoroughly enjoy the opportunity of hitting a long iron from well upwards of 240 yards away on the 14th. This is possible only because of how severely tilted the fairway is leading into the green, allowing for oodles of run-out. To put this slope into perspective, one can putt from 75-plus yards away without even swinging the flatstick above the hip. 

The green at the bottom of the hill is very wavy with a central ridge that guards the slender back portion. It’s quite easy to send your ball long of this green, which in turn gifts you a very challenging and delicate recovery shot. The 14th is unlike any hole I’ve encountered elsewhere.

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Overall Thoughts

Places like CC of Scranton – under the radar, classic design – get my juices going more than any other golf courses. Ever since I saw the rollicking Walter Travis greens at Hollywood Golf Club and heard Brian Schneider talk about Scranton on the Fried Egg Golf Podcast, I’ve been eager to seek out more of Travis’s work. During a recent trip to Philadelphia, we unexpectedly found ourselves with a free day and our minds instantly fixated on Scranton. The anticipation was next level, and the course fully lived up to the hype. 

Having now seen two sets of mostly intact Walter Travis greens, I can confidently say that no one built greens like Travis. So much so that I often ponder and try to hypothesize why one architect of the Golden Age was able to build such unique greens compared to the majority of his peers at the time. Travis is famously known for his superior putting ability and the eventual outlawing of his beloved Schenectady Putter by the R&A in 1910. Perhaps his goal was to create more emphasis on the skill of putting with his green designs since he had seemingly mastered the craft. We may never know exactly why or how he built such enthralling greens, but we can at least try to preserve and study those that still exist.

In the case of CC of Scranton, the internal movement and individual complexity of each green is hard to fathom in person, let alone describe in text. Many of the greens at Scranton include long rolls, sunken pockets, perched tiers, perimeter mounds, and recessed channels. His ability to compartmentalize sections of the green for pin placements creates immense strategic variety from day to day. It also means that long putts across the internal sections are quite adventurous and difficult to judge. Possibly the most fascinating aspect about his greens is how they work so well under modern green speeds. Instead of benching a green into a hill and having a constant back-to-front slope, he focused more on internal contouring to segment flatter sections for hole locations. Thus, his original greens at Scranton work remarkably well at 10-plus on the Stimpmeter, but unfortunately they typically run too fast for my liking here. Additionally, this style of green building doesn’t punish misses so greatly that you may have an impossible recovery shot. Often there is a backstop, perimeter mound, or slope that you can play a chip off of to set up a par putt, but it still requires quality execution to do so.

Here are a few of the standout greens at Scranton:

No. 7

As mentioned earlier, this green is located towards the bottom of a slope and heavily built up on the backside to make it playable. The putting surface is wavy and almost biarritz-like with three distinct sections. You must land the ball well short of the green if you want to remain on the putting surface. Part of this green's elegance is how seamlessly it blends into the natural grade from the approach view, but as soon as you get behind the hole or to the side, you can see just how much earth moving was done to make the green feasible. Pure class. 

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No. 9

Perhaps the most unique green on the course. The best way to describe this putting surface would be a four-sectioned heart shape. The back left lobe has a sunken bowl and a small raised plateau, the middle front section has a false front and subtle pocket, all while tilting left to right. The back right lobe is an intricate funnel-shaped trough that is the lowest section of the entire green. The deep horseshoe-shaped chipping swale behind the green adds to the lore of this marvel, creating intense recovery shots. This green must be seen to be believed.

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No. 13

I’m not sure I have the ability to describe this green other than it’s wavy, potato-chippy, and downright chaotic. It feels like there are nine different pockets or mini plateaus to stick the pin. Please, just look at the photos of the green because I cannot do it justice. 

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No. 15

What’s amazing about this green is how simple it appears from the fairway. Upon closer inspection, you’ll notice endless micro contours in conjunction with the large diagonal swale that divides the green into two halves. What I admire most about this green is how subtle and non-channelant it seems, yet it’s just as intricate and enchanting as the rest on this list.

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No. 18

The best part of this green is that it’s likely the first one you will see upon arrival. It sits directly outside the pro shop and adjacent to the first tee. It has the most pronounced and boldest internal contours on the course. The 18th is essentially four quadrants of varying sizes. A large sideways T-shaped ridge divides the green most prominently, and perimeter mounds bleed into the surface to create rumpled, rolling edges. This is a green I’d like in my backyard for unlimited experimental putting joy. 

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Upon reflection, it seems there is a splendid cadence to the way you experience the most salient greens at Scranton. While all 15 originals are captivating in their own right, the heavy hitters are evenly spaced out.

Scranton is, without a doubt, in its best form since the 1930s thanks to those who have dedicated their time to reinstating and preserving Walter Travis’s vision: Ian Andrew, Greg Boring, Brian Schneider, Aaron Giorando, and the Walter Travis Society, to name a few. I can’t help but imagine what the course would be with its original, alien-like bunkers brought back, and the final three greens faithfully recreated in the Travis style. 

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Andy Johnson has already covered the Great Remaining Golf Course Restoration Opportunities, but the unique bunkers found in this 1930s aerial photo, paired with one of the most eccentric sets of greens in the world, make the CC of Scranton eligible for not only this list, but a prime contender to become a true unicorn in the golf world. While this bunker style is potentially impractical for maintenance and playability, it would make for an amazing one-off aesthetic similar to how the restored Hollywood Golf Club stands alone with its bunker scheme. At the very least, rebuilding the bunkers to be less Augusta-like and more traditional to the 1920s standard would go a long way because the current form is offensive. 

All things considered, Scranton is a golf course worthy of immense study in the green building department. The putting surfaces are sublime and an absolute joy just to look at and even more so to play on. I often found myself bewildered as to why more architects don’t build exciting greens like this because of how captivating their intricacy is. Maybe it’s because Walter Travis was a green building genius. 

1 Egg

(How We Rate Courses)

The greens alone at Scranton deserve three Eggs, but that’s not how this system works. Despite having three unoriginal putting surfaces, I still believe they are in the top three sets of greens I’ve ever seen. One shortcoming is the excessive speed they are currently maintained at, which takes away from the experience. Recreating the fourth, fifth, and 11th greens based on Ian Andrew’s research and bringing back a more classic style of bunkering true to the time period would instantly take Scranton to two Eggs. 

Course Tour

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