National Club Pro coming to the Cricket Club in 2015

   Between Monday’s snowstorm and Wednesday’s ice storm, this little bit of good golf news blew into a Daily Times email inbox like the warm spring breezes to come.

   Philadelphia Cricket Club, not far from the border with Philadelphia in Montgomery County, has a long and illustrious history, which includes hosting the 1907 and 1910 U.S. Opens.

   Joining a recent trend that will bring the 2016 U.S. Women’s Amateur to Rolling Green Golf Club right here in Delaware County and the 2016 U.S. Middle Amateur Championship to Stonewall in Chester County, the PGA will stage the 48^th PGA Professional National Championship, presented by Club Car, Mercedes-Benz and OMEGA, to the Cricket Club June 21-24, 2015.

   The National Club Pro, the moniker by which the event was known for many years, brings together the top club professionals from around the country. In addition to the most lucrative purse the club pros play for, there is the added incentive of a berth in the PGA Championship later in the summer for the top 20 finishers.

   Mark Sheftic, the head of instruction at Merion Golf Club, earned his third trip to the PGA Championship last summer with a tie for fourth at the National Club Pro at the Sunriver Resort in Sunriver, Ore. Stu Ingraham, the teaching pro at the M Golf Range in Newtown Square, has taken the National Club Pro route to the PGA Championship six times in his career.

   The Cricket Club boasts two great layouts, one, the Wissahickon Course (formerly known as the Flourtown), is a classic A.W. Tillinghast and the other, the Militia Hill Course, is the work of Dr. Michael Hurdzan and Dana Fry.

   The Cricket Club was formed in 1854 and its first nine-hole layout, the St. Martins, was built by Willie Tucker and still exists as a nine-hole course. Nine holes were added to the original St. Martins and that’s the course over which the two early Opens were played.

   Tillinghast’s Wissahickon course was completed in 1922 and the Hurdzan’s and Fry’s work in creating the Militia Hill course was completed in 2002.

   I covered a Philadelphia Section PGA Championship at the Wissahickon Course, probably in 1978 or thereabouts. Delco’s own Eddie Dougherty dominated the tournament until a sore hand derailed his chances. Pretty sure Mike Nilon won that in a four-way playoff in  fading daylight, but the course was a gem, in much the same way that so many of its neighbors are, like Whitemarsh Valley and Sunnybrook and Manufacturers.

   I’ve covered a pair of Inter-Ac Tournaments at the Militia Hill course, one won by Haverford School’s Michael Kania and one won by Haverford School’s Cole Berman, and found it long and demanding. Berman, by the way, is a member at the Cricket Club and won the decisive point that gave the club the Golf Association of Philadelphia Team Match title last spring.

   The 312-player National Club Pro field will alternate courses in the first two rounds with the final 36 holes being contested at the Wissahickon Course after the field is cut.

   “It’s exciting to have our PGA National Professional Championship coming to Philadelphia Cricket Club, a venue that connects much of the early history of golf in this country with the design excellence of A.W. Tillinghast, who was a key adviser at our founding nearly a century ago,” said Ted Bishop, president of the PGA of America, in a PGA release this week. “Our talented field of PGA professionals will find a great test at Philadelphia Cricket Club and we anticipate that an outstanding champion will be crowned in 2015.”

   Bob Bauer is the Philadelphia Cricket Club 2015 Tournament Chair and is anxious to see how some renovations to the Wissahickon Course will hold up against a talented field of club pros.

   “We’re very honored to host the 2015 PGA National Professional Championship, with our historic Wissahickon Course designed by our legendary member, A.W. Tillinghast,” Bauer said. “After years of research and planning, the club hired Keith Foster, a Tillinghast golf course restoration specialist, to return the original and distinctive features to the course and bring it up to date to account for changes in golf technology.

   “We are confident this historic course will provide a worthy test for the finest PGA professionals competing in this prestigious championship. We look forward to welcoming the PGA of America in 2015.”

   Foster’s work is expected to be completed this spring.

   The 7,119-yard, par-70 Wissahickon course has been the site of numerous Golf Association of Philadelphia and Philadelphia Section PGA events since its opening. The 7,199-yard, par-72 Militia Hill layout has regularly appeared on lists of top 25 courses in Pennsylvania since its arrival on the scene a little more than a decade ago.

   “We have a fantastic membership that I know is looking forward to hosting this national championship,” said Jim Smith Jr., PGA director of golf at the Cricket Club. “Wissahickon and Militia Hill are two distinctly different courses, but complement each other so well.

   “Militia Hill received rave reviews for its design and conditioning while hosting multiple section and Golf Association of Philadelphia events. Our membership is confident that the restoration of Wissahickon will have this Tillinghast design mentioned as one of his finest classic courses.”