Philadelphia Cricket Club
Designed by A. W. Tillinghast
History
Long before the modern golfer ever set foot on its fairways, the Philadelphia Cricket Club had already claimed a singular distinction in American sport: founded in 1854, it stands as the oldest country club in the United States. Golf came to the club later, as it did to so many cricket and athletic clubs of the era, when the game’s popularity swept through Philadelphia’s social and sporting circles in the 1890s. The club’s membership, flush with resources and ambition, sought grounds worthy of their growing enthusiasm for the sport, and their search eventually led them to the Chestnut Hill and later the Flourtown properties that would come to define the club’s golfing identity.
A. W. Tillinghast, the New York-born architect who would go on to shape some of the most storied courses in American golf, brought his design sensibilities to the club’s Militia Hill and Wissahickon courses in the years following his emergence as a serious course architect in the early twentieth century. Tillinghast had a gift for adapting his designs to the character of the land he was given, and Philadelphia’s rolling, wooded terrain offered him a canvas distinct from the flatter ground he encountered elsewhere. His work here came during a period when he was simultaneously building a national reputation, and the club’s willingness to commission him reflected its standing among the era’s most ambitious golfing institutions.
The Wissahickon course earned its place in championship history by hosting the U.S. Open in 1907 and 1910, along with the 1913 U.S. Amateur, cementing the club’s early importance to the American game. Over the decades that followed, the club’s golf operations expanded and shifted between its multiple courses, with membership priorities and maintenance needs shaping which layouts received the most attention. The Wissahickon course itself underwent a significant restoration in the early 2000s, an effort aimed at recovering much of Tillinghast’s original design intent after decades of incremental change, ensuring that the layout’s connection to its architect and its championship past remained legible to the golfers who play it today.
Playing Notes
Bring your walking shoes and expect the Chestnut Hill grounds to test your touch more than your driver — the terrain rolls and shifts underfoot in ways that make flat lies a small victory, and the greens demand real attention to speed once you're on them. The Flourtown property, with more room to breathe, asks different questions: tighter tee shots into corridors lined by trees mean accuracy off the tee matters as much as anything you'll do with a wedge in hand. Across both sites, expect firm, well-maintained turf that rewards a running approach as often as a high one, so take time on the practice green beforehand to get a read on how the ball reacts once it lands. Neither course is going to beat you up with length, but both will find the gaps in your short game and your ability to read subtle break, so pack patience along with your clubs and plan for a full day if you're playing either as a walk.