Cobbs Creek, with Tiger Woods' support, again hopes to foster inclusion in golf

The learning lab also has a junior practice putting green, built with a $250,000 donation from the foundation of three-time major champion Jordan Spieth. Also on property is a 68-bay driving range and a short course designed by Woods’ company. All the elements play a role in the bigger project: the championship course restoration.

“There’s a lot of new ways that people are picking up the game now, and you’ll have all of that available here,” Spieth said at the opening of the putting green. “The accessibility for anybody, of any age, to come. Do golf however you want to do golf.”
The grand plan is to restore the course to the original design by Hugh Wilson, the golf course architect responsible for crafting nearby Merion. The rebuild has been made more daunting by near-constant flooding and decades of disrepair that led to the course closing in 2020.

The hope is to eventually host a PGA Tour event at the site. For now, golf is just piece of the puzzle.

“We knew we were going to restore this golf course and it was going to be for the good of the public,” said Cobbs Creek Foundation COO Enrique Hervada.

“Golf is very exclusive in many ways. This is extremely inclusive. Everybody is welcome here. It was always that way, too.”

For decades, Cobbs Creek delivered on its promise

Philadelphia-owned Cobbs Creek was established to serve those unable to golf at private clubs.

Wilson is credited with the design of Cobbs Creek’s “Olde Course,” with an assist from noted golf course architects George Crump (Pine Valley), A.W. Tillinghast (Winged Foot), George Thomas (Riviera) and William Flynn (Shinnecock Hills).

The layout hosted the USGA’s Amateur Public Links in 1928. A nine-hole layout, the Karakung Course, was established in 1929. In 1947, Cobbs Creek was the site of the Negro National Open, with heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis as the first-round leader. It became one of only a handful of courses in the National Black Golf Hall of Fame in 2021.

Sifford and Howard “Buth” Wheeler, a pioneer among Black golfers and multi-time United Golf Association national champion, were notable players at Cobbs Creek. Sifford was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2004 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2014. He died in 2015.

In the 1950s, the original layout was tweaked to make room for four missile silos and barracks as part of the U.S. air defense system. The original layout was reconfigured and the course continued to deal with flooding. Conditions also deteriorated while under the control of different management companies.

The renovation comes with a $180 million price tag. There have been numerous stops and starts during the rebuild while awaiting permitting and other hurdles. Fundraising is a near-daily endeavor for Hervada.

Golf architects Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner, who led the restoration of Aronimink, are refurbishing the “Olde Course.” The drainage issues have been dealt with and the plan includes restoring three miles of creek and creating more than 20 acres of wetlands.

“The people involved knew it was going to be a herculean effort,” Hervada said. “We’re really close, but we have a long way to go. We’re building this for the next 100 years.”

2026 PGA Championship Previews - Aronimink Golf Club

PGA Championship 2026: A hole-by-hole look at Aronimink Golf Club

A hole-by-hole look at Aronimink Golf Club, site of the 108th PGA Championship to be played May 14-17.

• Associated Press,

• Associated Press,

Profits from much of the golf will drive the TGR Learning Lab

The 30,000-square foot educational facility for grades 1-12 was the first building to open on the Cobbs Creek campus, in April 2025. It is the second TGR lab, after the first in Anaheim, California, opened in 2006. Others are planned for Georgia and California.

The plan is for the profits from the golf operations to help fund the STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) after-school and weekend programs.

The learning lab got off to a fast start, thanks to Woods’ TGR Foundation.

Meredith Foote, the lab’s executive director, said when the facility first opened, schools within a mile and a half radius were the targets. Now, all are welcome, and Foote says that 7,000 students have been served.

“We exist to open up doors and opportunities,” Foote said. “And when the right doors to educational enrichment open, there is no limit for our students. It’s really expose, expose, expose.”

Corrine Schultz, 18, of Upper Darby, was excited about joining the learning lab from the moment she saw what was offered. The homeschooled high school senior is on a robotics team at TGR.

“Opportunity,” Schultz said of what was offered. “To be part of a competitive team with the robotics. I had never been a part of a competitive team.”

Schultz will continue her education in the fall at Drexel University and plans to return to the lab.

“I’m a student here,” she said. “But whatever future career I decide, I want to give back to the community, to people in general.”

And that is exactly what Foote wants the learning lab to instill in its participants.

“The legacy of this program is the kids who come in and are trying to find their passion and going on to do amazing things in life because of the opportunities they received here at the TGR Learning Lab,” Foote said. “We’re using golf as a driver to lift up this entire community.”