It took a recent email from an out-of-towner to make me
realize just how much I’ve come to like the Golf Course at Glen Mills.
The
email was from an avid golfer who was coming to Philadelphia on a business trip
for several days. He expected to
have some downtime and he wanted a recommendation on the three best daily fee
courses in the area.
Without even having to think about it, I put Glen Mills at the top of
the list. With Hartefeld National and Pine Hill both more private than
semi-private these days, it’s hard to imagine that Glen Mills wouldn’t make
anybody’s list of Top 3 local courses you can play. (Update: As of Jan. 1,
2010, Pine Hill is Trump National- Philadelphia, and it’s completely private).
In 2001, the year after Glen Mills opened, Golf Digest ranked it seventh on its
annual national list of best "New Upscale Courses." The following year Golf magazine ranked it fifth in the
nation on its list of "Top Ten You Can Play." Not to be outdone, Golfweek soon followed by ranking Glen Mills as the No.
1 daily-fee course in Pennsylvania (it’s currently ranked No. 2, behind the
Mystic Rock course at Nemacolin Woodlands resort in western Pennsylvania.)
But as good as the Golf Course at Glen Mills is, the story behind it
is even better. The course is, after all, owned and operated as part of the Glen Mills Schools, the oldest
reform school in the nation, dating back to 1826.
At the bag drop, in the pro shop, out on the mowers, golfers are
likely to encounter students who’ve had a brush with the law and are there to
learn the rewards of walking the straight and narrow, as well as life and job
skills. Besides the job training
the golf course provides about 40 kids at any one time, proceeds from the
33,000-plus rounds go to fund college scholarships for Glen Mills graduates.
"These kids have never had a chance in life," Ron Pilot, the retired
businessman and Glen Mills board member who conceived the course, told me not
long after it opened. "We give
them a chance."
A chance and, often, a dream.
During a recent round at Glen Mills, I struck up a conversation with the
young man ferrying me out to the range to meet my playing partner. It turned out he was from one of the
toughest neighborhoods in Philadelphia and had 18 months to go at Glen
Mills. After that, he had his
sights set on college, then law school.
"If he gets in, he can count on a full scholarship," said Pilot,
father of seven and grandfather of two dozen, for whom Glen Mills is a labor of
love.
Even without the compelling back story, Glen Mills would crack my Top
3 daily-fee courses around town.
Open since 2000, the 6,646-yard, par 71 Bobby
Weed design is a delight from start to finish, rolling across 235 picturesque
acres of Chester County countryside.
On several holes, the stately red stone buildings of Glen Mills School,
which looks more like a cozy college campus than a reform school, come into
view in the distance.
For Weed, a Florida architect who was recommended to Pilot by his old
boss and mentor, Pete Dye, Glen Mills was his first big project in the
Northeast. He did not waste the
opportunity.
After a opening hole that seems easy enough but is a bogey waiting to
happen, Glen Mills quickly becomes a three-ticket thrill ride. (Photo gallery)
The second hole, a 431-yarder with an uphill fairway that swerves
left, culminates with a flat, seemingly benign green that will give you
fits. Even a perfectly struck putt
slides past the hole like it never had a chance.
The beast of the front nine is the par 5 fourth, a 571-yard double
dogleg that’s uphill, then downhill as it wends its way around an abyss that is
a 235-yard carry for daredevils.
The outward nine also includes the most maddening green within a
100-mile drive, on the long uphill par 3 seventh. Not only is the green four clubs deep, it’s got more mounds
than an almond joy and more shelves than a grocery store.
The toughest par on the front nine, however might just be the
deceivingly difficult, almost-driveable eighth. Only 325 yards from the back tees, the
trick to the eighth is negotiating a green that is elevated, shallow and sloped
and rejects all but the most delicate approach shots.
The back nine starts out with a dramatic downhill par 3 that feels
like you’re playing from the roof of a skyscraper, to a huge tiered green
below. You can hit the green and
be two zip codes away from the hole.
By far the most controversial hole is the 11th, a short
(376 yards) par four with a daunting-looking ribbon-thin fairway that is
squeezed from the right by weed-filled mounds up the right side and on the left
by a craggy creek. The play, it
turns out, is to hit a 3-wood or long-iron off the tee, hoping to find the
landing area that is not easily visible from the tee.
Weed grabs your attention again with the two closing holes -- a par 5 that plays longer than its
484 yards and a long par 4, both of which require long carries off the tee. Together, they are a one-two punch in
the gut you won’t soon forget.
