Club: Many of today’s golf courses are built as centerpieces of real estate developments. It is not uncommon for a new course to be surrounded by backyards and roadways. Many traditionalists have bemoaned this trend, but the concept is hardly a new one.
Woodcrest Country Club located in Cherry Hill, N.J. Woodcrest was the brainchild of one J. Wesley Goldthorp, an attorney from Collingswood. In 1925, Goldthorp purchased some 1,200 acres of farmland with the intention of turning it into a housing development. The land had become especially valuable when Goldthorp and others learned that a plan was in place to extend a rail line through the area.
His original proposal called for a golf course as part of the development, but his plans went awry with the collapse of the stock market in 1929. Golthorp, who had moved into a farmhouse on the property with his family, was suddenly left holding a large piece of property (complete with a large tax bill) that was generating no income. His solution to the problem was to build a public golf course.
William Fynn was brought in as the architect. Flynn had achieved quite a bit of notoriety in the Philadelphia area by this time. He had come to the area in 1912 to assist Hugh Wilson with the construction of Merion. By the time he took on the Woodcrest project, his partnership with Howard Toomey was well established. Flynn handled the creative aspects of the operation while Toomey concentrated on the technical side.
Together they had been responsible for Lancaster Country Club (1920), Cherry Hills (1923), Rolling Green (1926). Huntingdon Valley (1927), Philadelphia Country Club (1927) and Lehigh Country Club (1928). Flynn had also done some tweaking at Pine Valley in 1928.
From the beginning it was obvious that Goldthorp was interested in developing a first-rate facility. Flynn and Toomey went right to work and by 1930, nine holes were open for play. In 1931, nine additional holes were added.
In reality, Flynn’s original plans called for 23 holes; five extra holes were actually staked out but were never built. Flynn had done this before by building six extra holes at Lancaster Country Club as a protection against the Conestoga River. Those extra holes remained even after Lancaster added a third nine.
Flynn apparently thought enough of the concept to take it to Woodcrest, but the plan was never carried out.
From 1930 through 1947, Woodcrest was a daily-fee club. The Goldthorp family continued to live on the property and his five children were all involved in the operation. The three girls were involved in mowing and maintaining the course, probably one of the earliest instances of women taking on that responsibility.
The first hint of change came in 1946, when Robert Galanter and Carl Auerbach approached Goldthorp about the possibility of buying the club from him. The pair wanted to establish their own private club because at this time there was an unwritten agreement among most private clubs in South Jersey to not accept Jews as members.
Goldthorp turned down the offer , but Galanter and Auerbach were undaunted and purchased another public course, Iron Rock, for $100,000. This became Crest Hollow Country Club, a private facility which met the immediate needs of its members, but did not offer the high-quality golf experience Galanter and Auerbach were looking for.
A short time later, they approached Goldthorp again, who by this time was more receptive to their idea, possibly because he was facing financial troubles. He accepted an offer of $125,000 on April 21, 1948, and Crest Hollow Country Club became Woodcrest Country Club. Officially the club was owned by the Community Realty Company, a holding company which sold interest-free bonds, many of them to members of the club.
The golf course itself was left intact, except for the parcel of land where Flynn’s extra holes had been laid because it was not part of the purchase and eventually wound up in the hands of a commercial developer.
Long before Woodcrest became a private club, its golf course had developed an outstanding reputation. Although not overly long, it placed a premium on accuracy and sound decision making.
Today, the fairways are lined with pine trees, and while those trees weren't there in the 1930’s, the rough had a fearsome reputation. In May of 1936, the tour of professionals of the PGA stopped by for what would be the second edition of the PGA Invitation Open. The first edition had been held the previous year at Llanerch. Vic Ghezzi won and went on to win the PGA Championship in 1941.
In 1951, Woodcrest joined the Golf Association of Philadelphia and over the years various amenities were added, including swimming pools and tennis courts. The golf course got its first irrigation system in 1963.
In 1965, William Gordon, a Flynn protégé, who had worked under Flynn earlier in his career adding nine holes to Seaview, near Atlantic City, came to Woodcrest with his son David to handle a renovation effort. This project mostly involved doing work on some of the greens and improving the drainage. However, the layout at Woodcrest has remained relatively unchanged through the years.
From the back tees, Woodcrest plays to 6,528 yards and a par of 71. The member tees are set at 6,219 yards and the intermediate tees at 5,531 yards. The forward markers are set at 5,395 yards. The course rating from the member tees is 71.1 and the slope rating an eye opening 137. From the tips, the numbers are 71.4 and 140. From the intermediate tees the course rating is 68.4 and the slope is a healthy 129, while the front tees are rated at 71.8 and sloped at 127.
According to the numbers, Flynn’s design plays much harder than its yardage. There are several reasons for this. First, the fairways are quite narrow, putting a premium on accuracy as well as distance off the tee. If the player misses the fairway, he will more often than not find himself ensconced in a collection of pine trees, making the recovery shot difficult. The greens are quite small, and feature an assortment of ridges and swales, which puts a premium on the player leaving the ball on the right side of the hole on his approach. Throughout his career, Flynn was an advocate of multiple tee boxes, and giving players of varying skill levels different ”looks” from the tee. At Woodcrest, the distance between the member and intermediate tees can be as great as 70 yards and on a majority of the holes the tees can be positioned to provide a variety of angles into the landing area.
Of course, no discussion of a William Flynn golf course would be complete without a reflection on the sheer beauty of the landscape. Flynn’s holes were designed to take advantage of the area’s natural splendor, and even a player struggling with his game will savor the experience of walking from one green to the next tee, just to get a look at what lies ahead.
Although this hole has undergone more major changes than any other on the golf course, the third hole is a classic example of Flynn’s ability to put a quality golf hole in a magnificent setting. It’s a 158-yard, par-3 that plays slightly uphill to a green protected by four bunkers. The tee shot plays across a pond that was added by Gordon during his renovation. The green was rebuilt in the early 1980s by Rees Jones, to combat a drainage problem. There is a bailout area if the player comes up short, but the visitor should be sure to take plenty of the club.
The seventh, another par-3 of 205 yards, features a cross bunker, set about 50 yards from the putting surface. This is one of the few examples at Woodcrest of the “Flynn bunker,” one that appears from a distance to be adjacent to the putting surface, but in reality is considerably short of it. Flynn employed this design element often in his work, and Gordon did as well when he began building courses on his own, but these bunkers are conspicuous by their absence at Woodcrest.
The front nine concludes with a 359-yard, par-4 that offers a variety of strategic options. The player must contend with two bunkers that guard the left side of the fairway, one about 200 yards from the member tee and the other about 220 yards out. The angle of the green to the fairway sets up for an approach from the left side, one that keeps a bunker on the left out of play. The player also has the option of hitting his tee shot down the right side, which takes the fairway bunkers out of play, but requires an approach over a greenside bunker on the right.
The back nine features some significant elevation changes. The 487-yard, par-5 11th features a drive across a gully and a ravine, while the second shot at the 434-yard, par-4 12th plays uphill over a creek to a green sitting on a plateau, protected by two bunkers. The 14th a 421-yard, par 4, features a magnificent view from an elevated tee. The tee shot must carry a creek to a fairway that bends slightly right and is guarded by two bunkers.
The 16th, a 364-yard, par-4, features another elevated tee and a fairway that doglegs sharply left. A mammoth bunker sits on the left side at the corner of the dogleg, discouraging a player from biting off too much of the corner. The finishing hole is 538-yard, par-5 that doglegs left. It is a true three-shot hole. A creek runs in front of the green about 80 yards out; ideally, the player will leave himself an approach of about 100 yards to be sure of a level lie. There is a backstop area behind the green and plenty of room to miss long. Even the high-handicapper has a good shot at bogey here. By laying up with his third shot short of the water, he leaves himself a wedge to a green that is one of widest targets on the on the course and has just a single bunker guarding it. This is the course that has tested members and visitors for nearly three-quarters of a century.
For the last 14 years, Rich Smith has been in charge of the golf shop. He has currently served as President of the Philadelphia Section PGA. He was preceded by his father, Dick, who came to Woodcrest in 1981, after spending time on the PGA Tour and running the Hi-Point Golf farm in Ivyland (now Spring Mill). Before coming to Woodcrest, Dick Smith won the Philadelphia PGA Championship twice, in 1974 and ’77. He also won Player of the Year honors four times and the Ed DeBaufre Memorial Trophy for low stroke average four times. Upon arriving in South Jersey, he promptly won the section title three times in succession between 1981 and ’83. He also took the Player of the Year award in the 1983 and the DeBaufre Trophy in 1982 and ’83.