Two nearby Delaware County golf courses made Golf Digest’s 2023 list of America’s Greatest Golf Courses, with one of them ranking in the top 10, write Derek Duncan and Stephen Hennessey for Golf Digest.
Merion Golf Club: East in Ardmore, set to host the U.S. Open in 2030, placed No. 6 on the list. It is located in Haverford Township.
Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square placed at No. 95.
“Merion East has long been considered the best course on the tightest acreage in America, and when it hosted the U.S. Open in 2013, its first since 1981, the present generation of big hitters couldn’t conquer this clever little course,” Duncan and Hennessey wrote.
Aronimink is “an object lesson in architectural evolution.”
The course started out as designer Donald Ross’ “masterpiece” in 1928 but was redesigned in the 1950s by William Gordon.
It was revamped again by Dick Wilson, George Fazio, and Robert Trent Jones, restored to Ross’s conception by specialist Ron Pritchard in the 1990s, then enhanced again recently by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner, who live near the course, based on aerial photographs that show the early design.
Read more about the top 100 golf courses at Golf Digest.
