The Union League Golf Club at Torresdale

Donald Ross prepared the routing and detailed plans for what was then Torresdale-Frankford Country Club in 1920; construction began that summer and the course opened for play in June 1921 (Donald Ross Society course list; Philadelphia Inquirer, 6-12-1921). Ross’s brief stressed making “a full-sized, strategic test on only 126 acres while preserving the broad slopes down to Pennypack Creek” (Ross field notes held in Tufts Archives). There is no record of a second Ross visit after grow-in, so his involvement was essentially a single design phase. Ross used the property’s 60-foot fall from the clubhouse ridge to the creek to create constant elevation change, then protected the small, perched greens with bold, asymmetrical bunkering. Trademark elements still evident include: • Greens set on natural high spots—e.g., the 3rd, 5th, 10th and 17th—requiring precise approach trajectories. • Diagonal, carry-or-bail bunkers such as the cross-hazards at the 4th fairway and the creek-edge bunker short left of the 12th green. • Short par-4s that tempt aggression (5th, 14th) balanced by stout two-shotters (10th, 17th) and a creek-side par-3 (3rd) where Ross angled the green against the flow of play. Most Ross aficionados single out the 3rd (169-yard par-3 over Pennypack Creek to an elevated thumb-print green), the 5th (drivable 315-yard par-4 with a fall-away green), and the 10th (433-yard par-4 climbing to a pushed-up green guarded left and right) as the clearest expressions of classic Ross strategy (Forse Design restoration report, 2016). Historically the course is significant as Ross’s only 18-hole design located entirely within the city limits of Philadelphia and as one of the rare Ross routings on such a constrained urban parcel. Although it has never hosted a national championship, it was a frequent site of Philadelphia PGA and Golf Association of Philadelphia championships between the 1920s and 1960s and was a qualifying course for the 1941 U.S. Amateur (GAP archives). Within Ross’s portfolio it is typically listed in the second tier—below Pinehurst No. 2 or Oakland Hills but alongside municipal-scale gems such as George Wright or East Potomac—because of its inventive land use and preserved green complexes (Dunlop & Finnegan, The Architects of Golf, p. 316). Roughly 85 percent of the Ross routing and 14 original greens survived into the 21st century, though many bunkers had been flattened and hundreds of trees planted during William Gordon’s 1952 bunker renovation and Ed Ault’s 1968 tee lengthening (club minutes, 3-12-1952; 5-8-1968). After the Union League of Philadelphia purchased the property in late 2014, architect Stephen Kay with Forse Design executed a 2015-16 restoration: greens were rebuilt to USGA specifications but with contours recreated from 1931 aerials; Ross bunker locations and flashing were reinstated; trees were removed to reopen original playing angles; and two non-Ross ponds from the 1980s were filled in (Philadelphia Inquirer, 4-3-2016; Kay/Nagle project summary). Only the 6th green (moved 25 yards for safety) and portions of the 11th and 13th fairways differ materially from Ross’s drawings. Consequently the course today plays at 6,450 yards, par 70, with green complexes, bunker scheme and strategic lines that are generally faithful to Ross’s 1921 vision.