ARDMORE
The community of Ardmore is a suburb on the west side of Philadelphia, primarily within Lower Merion Township, Montgomery County. Originally named Athensville in 1853, the town was renamed Ardmore in 1873 by the Pennsylvania Railroad. Residents and visitors enjoy several parks including South Ardmore Park, which is partly in Ardmore and partly in Wynnewood. Suburban Square, the second oldest shopping mall in the U.S., is located adjacent to the Ardmore train station. Ardmore offers a post office, ice skating club, public swimming pool, community center, Zagat rated restaurants, two libraries, boutique as well as major chain shopping and a championship golf course. The public schools in Ardmore operate within the Lower Merion Township school district, rated one of the top in Pennsylvania.
Merion Golf Club
The Merion Golf Club dates from 1896, when members of the Merion Cricket Club (founded in 1865) opened a golf course in Haverford, Pennsylvania. In 1910, the membership decided to build a new course and chose 32-year-old club member Hugh Wilson, a Scottish immigrant, to design it. Merion East opened in September 1912, and the original course was closed. The West Course, also designed by Wilson, opened in May 1914. The Merion Golf Club did not officially separate from the Merion Cricket Club until 1941.
Hugh Wilson had never designed a golf course, so he went on a seven-month trip to Scotland and England to study British courses. Several features of Merion East are derived from famous British courses, not the least of which are Merion's distinctive Scottish-style bunkers, which are now known as the "white faces of Merion". Wilson's layout covers only 126 acres (0.51 km2) of land, a very small area for a golf course. It was ranked seventh in Golf Digest's "America's 100 Greatest Golf Courses" in 2005, and Jack Nicklaus has said of Merion East, "Acre for acre, it may be the best test of golf in the world."
