The Landing at The Union League Torresdale

The Landing at The Union League Torresdale opened in May of 2024 as an all-new par-3, 9-hole reversible-play companion course to the existing Donald Ross 18-hole course.

About Project

The Landing at The Union League Torresdale opened in May of 2024 as an all-new par-3, 9-hole reversible-play companion course to the existing Donald Ross 18-hole course. It was designed by Steve Weisser. The goal in building The Landing was to take some of the pressure off of the main 18-hole course, and offer an additional amenity on the until-then-untouched 25 acres in the bustling urban neighborhood that is landlocked on all sides by Northeast Airport, shopping areas, an elementary school playground, and established homes.

The nine-hole course has no definable tee boxes, and no rough. It was grassed with a mix of seeded bentgrass greens and Tahoma 31 bermudagrass on all other surfaces. The Tahoma 31 is mowed uniformly at a half-inch to easily enable a change in the direction of play by simply moving tee markers. The bermudagrass continues to the perimeter of the in-play areas, where it sweeps up the slopes and down into grass collection areas. The areas beyond the Tahoma 31 were seeded in fescue to transition out to the native surrounds.

Choice of Grass Aids in Flexibility

From a design standpoint, the wear tolerance of a fast-healing warm-season grass like Tahoma 31 bermuda provides versatility for a shorter course with a smaller grassed surface.

“Tahoma 31 was part of the design philosophy,” Weisser says. “You can imagine the amount of wear that tees of a par-3 course would get. And so in this way, to be able to play clockwise one week and counterclockwise the other week, you play from different locations and you’re able to spread the wear out. And that was part of the reason we were using Tahoma 31—for recovery.”

The Landing is thought to be the first golf course in Pennsylvania to use warm-season Tahoma 31 bermudagrass, known for its cold hardiness and drought resistance, to this extent. However, considering the NFL’s  Philadelphia Eagles and Philadelphia Union MLS  teams play on it at their stadiums, and both the University of Pennsylvania and  Philadelphia Phillies teams practice on Tahoma 31, it was only a matter of time before a Philadelphia-based golf course would take the leap to use the grass beyond driving ranges and tee boxes. In fact, prior to construction, Superintendent Andrew Dooley visited with the Eagle’s Head Groundskeeper Tony Leonard, Director of Grounds at Lincoln Financial Field to discuss planting bermudagrass, specifically Tahoma 31.

“We went down there in July, probably three years ago. We’d just had a thunderstorm the night before, and that gave us a chance to not have to be concerned about moisture management on the 18-hole golf course, because our greens here are mostly Poa and they just require a lot of attention. So we broke away. We went down there for an afternoon field trip. And Tony said, ‘Last night you were probably sweating and you couldn’t sleep because you thought your fairways might have pythium and your greens might have pythium.’ He said, ‘When it thunders and lightnings and you get two inches of rain, he said, it’s the best thing for Tahoma 31. And when it’s dry and my irrigation system doesn’t work, it’s the best thing for Tahoma 31. It can just handle anything,” Dooley recalls Leonard saying.

An endorsement like that from Leonard helped give the team the confidence they needed to proceed. The course was shaped in-house and grassed last spring and summer. Greens were seeded.

Tahoma 31 was applied with various methods of sod, sod-to-sprigs and sprigging that broke down to:
Having previously only managed cool-season grasses, Dooley notes the following differences in Tahoma 31 turfgrass management:

Still, converting to bermudagrass this far north in the Transition Zone, to be the first ones in the area to do it to this extent, took faith on the part of the members and the staff.

“I think it’s a process. You know, you’ve got to be fully committed to it. I wouldn’t call it easy. There’s a learning curve for someone who’s never done it before. But just to know that when you get into the heat of summer, I have no concerns that that grass is dying. I can tell you that. On the other hand, the bentgrass/poa greens here, I mean, we have to check those greens five, six times a day. We just have to constantly baby the poa,” Dooley says.  “There’s no babying Tahoma 31.”

Still, the membership had to be reassured that Tahoma 31 was the right choice for The Landing.

“We had to do a presentation for some of our members at The League in the winter. Some questions came up from the crowd as to ‘Why did you pick bermudagrass? What are you thinking?’ And you know, for me, I never really had bermudagrass other than a driving range tee. I was trying to be confident in my answer. Then, when we did our opening day on May 16th, one of the members who was not really in favor of bermudagrass came up to me and he said, ‘Andrew, this is bermudagrass? Iit looks like bentgrass.’ I said, ‘I told you, it’s very fine textured.’ I mean, for the average golfer, for the average person out here, no one can tell the difference unless you’re a superintendent on your hands and knees pulling out the stolons and the rhizomes. You can’t tell.”

READ THE FULL STORY IN BY DESIGN MAGAZINE

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