Merion Golf Club - Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

Merion Golf Club in Ardmore, outside Philadelphia, is a classic American course and a hallmark of the Philadelphia school of design. The Merion Cricket Club was founded in 1865, and golf was introduced with a nine-hole course in 1896. The East Course was designed by Hugh Wilson, a member of Merion and Princeton graduate who was born in Scotland. Wilson was not a professional course architect, but showed an aptitude for design, and was selected by the club to spend seven months studying the great courses of Scotland and England in preparation for his work at Merion, which was completed in 1912. Wilson created a course that is still ranked in the top ten in the United States. He molded 128 bunkers-"the white faces of Merion"-as they were famously described by Chick Evans when he won the 1916 U.S. Amateur Championship at Merion. Merion, with its distinctive red wicker flagsticks, has hosted a number of historic tournaments. Ben Hogan won the U.S. Open there in 1950 in a remarkable comeback after his near-fatal car accident in 1949. Lee Trevino won his second U.S. Open at Merion in 1971, defeating Jack Nicklaus in a playoff.

The Golf Course At Glen Mills - Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

The Golf Course at Glen Mills, outside Philadelphia in rural Delaware County, is a daily-fee course that is part of the 800-acre campus of the Glen Mills School. Glen Mills is not any old school. Founded in 1826, it is the oldest residential facility in the United States for troubled youths, with a current enrollment of 900 boys from age 14 to 18 who have been sent to the school by court systems in 28 states. About 75 of the boys, who have been involved in crimes ranging from petty theft to murder, are getting a first-class education in the golf business by working in the clubhouse, pro shop, and maintaining the course. The course, opened in 2000 and designed by Bobby Weed, who worked for Pete Dye and has designed courses for the PGA Tour, is superb and demanding. The first four holes are routed through rolling cornfields before the course saunters through dense woodlands, ribbons of wetlands, and craggy rocks and streams, with more than 200 feet of elevation change. The massive main school building, with its narrow fluted brick chimneys and clock tower, looms above the 17th hole.