Commonwealth National
Commonwealth is my home club outside Philly so my review may be a little skewed. It’s always tough to rank your own club but hopefully everyone who plays at a club can rank theirs as high as I do Commonwealth. Take pride in what you have! We tend to look much more harshly at our own courses but it’s interesting when you have someone who’s never played it before comment because they’re not looking for the bad like you can do at home. You usually learn a lot more positives than negatives when soliciting comments.
Commonwealth is usually a PA Best-in-State club rated in or around the 20s. Years ago it hosted a postseason event featuring most of the PGA big names at the time. It’s very different from the old money, classic courses in Philly and it is tough – way over my head. There’s water or ball-gobbling wetlands on all but two or three holes. The greens run fast and true and are big and look much more breaky than they are – so they’re pretty tough for a newbie to read.
The staff is great and treat your guests well and they have a great range and short game area that I usually eschew for the bar. The knock is that the course runs through an office park on some of the holes on the front and for two on the back. Absent that, this is likely my top ranked Palmer design (and not just because I call it home).
The 18th is one of the toughest finishers you will ever encounter, regardless of skill. An environmental wetland area prevents big hitters from uncorking the driver – so man and beast alike are hitting 220-185 over the wetlands into a severely sloping back to front green protected by bunkers on either side. Other favorites include four (a 350-yard par four) where you need to cross a creek to hit the fairway with water left and OB right. Then back over the water on the approach. Again, the design keeps big hitters from using the driver. The back nine moves away from the office park and into the wetlands. Every hole is a challenge on the back and you best pack an extra sleeve of golf balls.
The membership used to be called a cross between Animal House and Goodfellas. Meh. Pretty good group of guys (and ladies) and some pretty serious golfers. There used to be a naval air base next door and it was a hoot when some F15 would take off along the first hole about 100 yards from where you’re standing in the fairway. They’ve since shuttered the base. My father joined here shortly after the course opened in 1990 and about ten years later I joined with my brother and cousins. Too many good times to talk about. You can have your tunes going and there’s always a cart girl nearby.
I played more there in the year of the Vid than I had for the previous three or four years combined. Then again, so did everyone else. Getting a tee time became a Bethpage Black like proposition. Hopefully 2021 settles things down some. That said, we are usually able to play when we want and the round (despite the difficulty) is usually pretty close to four hours. There’s a men’s grill and a newer patio area outside. Except this past year, your pro should be able to get you on here and if you have a Philly golf week planned this will make a nice departure from the Main Line old school clubs.
Maybe since I decided to do this, I will take some photos later this year and add them. This is one course I can label every hole from memory. For now you can find it in the scrapbook here but will update when I take my photos. UPDATE: Added four photos.
UPDATE: Added two more photos PLUS a tornado ripped through the back nine of the course so I added three photos of the storm damage from September 2021. Now tornadoes are quite rare in Southeastern PA but in the summer of 2021 two ripped through the area damaging quite a few homes (and golf courses). Commonwealth likely lost about 100 trees. Most were perimeter trees or into the woods a bit. However, the storm ripped out a few that block the 16th green from the 15th dogleg. Watch out! Also the one fucker off the fairway on the 17th survived – that is the hell tree.
Golf Scrapbook 