The Cobbs Creek complex with the City of Brotherly Love in the distance.
COURTESY cobbs creek foundation
By JOHN STEINBREDER
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA | More than just another golf facility, Cobbs Creek is a 110-year-old treasure that stands out for the rich history it represents. It was the site of this city’s first municipal course when it opened in 1916 and features a layout by Hugh Wilson, who had just crafted the East and West courses at Merion. He was assisted in his work at Cobbs Creek by several other members of the so-called Philadelphia School of Architecture, among them A.W. Tillinghast, George C. Thomas, William Flynn and George Crump. And what they produced, making terrific use of the rolling terrain as well as its eponymous waterway, became a popular place for recreational players. Tournament organizers were also impressed with what those gentlemen had created, which is why the course hosted a USGA championship in 1928 (the U.S. Amateur Public Links) as well as a pair of PGA Tour events, the 1955 and ’56 Philadelphia Daily News Opens.
Charlie Sifford
Augusta National, Getty Images
As much as anything else, Cobbs Creek shined as a low-cost place for locals to learn and play the game. It was a welcoming place, too, especially to people who weren’t always welcomed at other clubs and courses. That’s a big reason why World Golf Hall of Famer Charlie Sifford started playing out of this facility when he moved to Philadelphia from North Carolina in 1939. It is also what largely compelled the United Golfers Association, which was formed a century ago to give the best Black players in the land a place to compete when they were banned from doing so on the PGA Tour, to stage its signature tournament, the National Negro Open, here in 1936 and 1947.
Another thing that makes this 350-acre complex noteworthy is the comeback it is making.
A decade ago, city officials considered Cobbs Creek “an abandoned asset.” Then on Halloween in 2020, they closed it down completely, due to money issues, a deteriorating infrastructure and overall safety concerns. Another problem was the incessant flooding by the waterway that snaked through a portion of the Olde Course, which the original layout had come to be called after a second course – dubbed the Karakung and measuring some 5,700 yards – was added to the complex in 1929.
But thanks to a major effort by area businesses and private donors who with the Cobbs Creek Foundation have led a $180 million restoration of this city-owned facility, it is at the forefront of the daily-fee course restoration movement that is revitalizing that part of the game in America. And the makeover that is currently underway at this muni, with Olde set to open by the spring of 2027 and a reimagined Karakung a year later, is nothing short of spectacular.
“… The idea is to make Cobbs Creek what it would have become had there not been so many issues with money and been able to evolve as the East at Merion did.”
Jim Wagner
The grand opening last month of the sumptuous, 42,000-square-foot Lincoln Financial Center at Cobbs Creek is an example of that. It boasts a double-decker practice facility with 68 hitting bays, 20 of which are heated, and all equipped with Toptracer technology. Golfers can also have food and drink brought to them as they work through their bags. In addition, the three-story structure features a sleek new pro shop offering a wide range of Cobbs Creek merchandise and a community event and banquet space as well as an upscale bar and restaurant. Called the Little Horse Tavern, the eatery honors Sifford, who was nicknamed the Little Horse during his playing days as a result of a horse pendant he wore.
Another element that has come on line at Cobbs Creek is the Smilow Woodland TGR Learning Lab, which is run by the Tiger Woods Foundation. Some 30,000 square feet in size, the facility is providing educational opportunities to local youths through a free, STEAM-focused program that covers science, technology, engineering, arts and math (hence the acronym) as well as college and career counseling. In addition to having nine classrooms, it features a music recording room, a podcast studio and a golf simulator. Outside is a nine-hole short course crafted by TGR Design.
The Smilow Woodland TGR Learning Lab at Cobbs Creek has been busy since its opening last fall.
Woods attended the official unveiling of this Learning Lab last September, and his involvement in this reimagination of Cobbs Creek – and in building only the second TGR Learning Lab since the first one opened in Anaheim, California, in 2006 – makes perfect sense when one considers that the golfer has described Sifford as a mentor and grandfather-like figure – and even named his son Charlie after the first African-American golfer ever to become a member of the PGA Tour.
And by this time next year, the revamping of the Olde Course at Cobbs Creek by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner, who played high school golf on this track, should be complete. That will put a bow on this very ambitious effort and not only augment the already exceptional golf offerings in this region but also provide PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp with an excellent option in his desire to bring tournaments to more of America’s top cities, Philadelphia among them.
“Cobbs Creek was designed to be a special place when it was built more than a century ago,” said Jeff Shanahan, the president of the foundation. “And our goal is to ensure that it is once again an important part of the community here as well as the Greater Philadelphia golf scene.”
I toured the Cobbs Creek track with Shanahan as well as course superintendent Ben Dewan on a raw and partly sunny day last month. The Olde Course is still a construction site, with the Philadelphia skyline often coming into view. But clearly much has been done, and that includes the felling of hundreds of trees. Hanse, Wagner and their crew are still working on the restoration of the waterway, which is some three miles long and will alone cost nearly $40 million to complete. Several greens, bunkers and fairways are still being shaped, the beep-beep-beep of backhoes cutting through a north wind that is gusting up to 25 knots. But even in that unfinished state, it is easy to see the potential of this place and how good the golf course can and no doubt will be.
The Olde Course at Cobbs Creek is expected to be open for play next spring.
“This is a great piece of land, with great character and lots of elevation changes, and the original routing is very good,” said Wagner. “But it is important to understand that Cobbs Creek has never realized its full potential as a masterpiece. The original course was rudimentary in some ways and never took its final form in the ground, due in many ways to the Depression hitting not all that long after it opened and times becoming so tough financially.”
“We are trying to hold as true to the original 18 holes as we possibly can, though we did have to make some tweaks due to flooding issues from the past, to make sure the golf course functions better,” Wagner added. “We are also going to put some more modern architectural elements into it. The idea is to make Cobbs Creek what it would have become had there not been so many issues with money and been able to evolve as the East at Merion did.”
And Wagner knows about that evolution at Merion as well as anyone, as he and Hanse revamped that iconic layout just prior to the outbreak of COVID-19.
Riding about Cobbs Creek, it is hard not to get excited about the work being done on this old course and how it will be when once it reopens in 2027, the course as it always should have been – and the complex like nothing that has ever been here before.
