Huntingdon Valley Country Club (Toomey & Flynn)

Huntingdon Valley Country Club is one of the elder statesmen of US golf clubs, inaugurated in 1887. As with many other older clubs, either side of the pond, it started out in life as a nine-hole layout, which was later expanded to 18 holes prior to moving to its present site at Huntingdon Valley in the 1920s.

Much of the site selected for the course was ground owned by W.W. Frazier, the club’s first President, and it was decided to construct an initial 27 holes on the understanding that more land could be acquired for an additional 9 holes if the club wished to expand to two 18-hole layouts.

William S. Flynn and Howard C. Toomey designed and built what was termed a “supercourse” in the local papers and it opened for play in April of 1928. Unfortunately, the harsh economic times that followed the Great Depression led the club to allow the “C” nine to fall into disrepair as only the other 18 holes were maintained.

When it was decided to restore the third nine to coincide with the club’s centenary, more than sixty years of overgrowth had to be cleared before the fairways – now called the Centennial nine – could be brought back into play by Ron Pritchard. The current practice area and several wetland areas had to be taken into consideration, resulting in slight changes to the original routing for this circuit.

On the Toomey nine, the par threes at 3 and 5 are highly rated one shotters whilst a winding stream comes into play at many of the holes on the Flynn nine. The closing trio of long par fours on the Centennial each measure over 430 yards and they form a demanding conclusion to this 9-hole circuit.