Wedding DJ at The UNion League Golf Club at Torresdale in Philadelphia, PA

The Space

The course traces back to two separate nine-hole clubs, the Torresdale Golf Club, founded in 1896, and the Frankford Club, started in 1897, that merged in 1921 and brought in Donald Ross to design a new 18-hole layout across a rolling 200-acre parcel with two creeks running through it. The result became Torresdale-Frankford Country Club, and for decades it hosted major regional golf, including five runnings of the Philadelphia Open and three of the Philadelphia Amateur Championship.

By the early 2000s membership had fallen to 147 members and about 10,000 rounds a year, and in 2014 The Union League of Philadelphia bought the property and brought in architect Stephen Kay for a restoration that ran from 2014 to 2016. Kay’s work restored every bunker and tee, resized all 18 greens back to their original dimensions, removed more than 250 trees, and widened the fairways from about 30 yards back to Ross’s original 40-yard width.

Capacity & Layout

There is no published event or banquet capacity in the material for this club, since it is fundamentally an 18-hole golf course, 6,609 yards from the championship tees with a par of 70 and a slope rating of 141, sitting on some of the highest ground in the city with elevation changes running through the property. That terrain is part of what any gathering here inherits, rolling rather than flat, with sightlines that shift as guests move across the grounds.

The restoration added more than 200 yards to the championship length with new back tees, and a practice facility with a driving range, a putting green, a chipping green, and practice bunkers sits alongside the course itself. Sam Snead set the course record of 64 here in 1941 during the Henry Hurst Invitational, a detail that speaks to the pedigree of the layout guests are standing on rather than to any event space specifically.

Amenities

The restoration was not limited to the course. About $3 million went into the golf course work itself, and a further $4 million was invested in clubhouse improvements, reopening the course in the spring of 2015 after the project began in August 2014. That level of investment across both the grounds and the clubhouse points to a property maintained to a high standard rather than one coasting on its history.

As a private club, the golf shop and clubhouse operate on private membership terms, and the grounds themselves, bent grass greens and fairways across 200 rolling acres with two creeks, are the main draw for any gathering held here. The elevation changes across the property mean views shift depending on where on the course you are standing, from the high points down toward the creek lines.

Location & Getting There

The Union League Golf Club at Torresdale sits about 12 miles northeast of Center City Philadelphia, on 200 acres that include some of the highest points in the city. Guests coming from Center City or the northern suburbs are driving out to genuinely elevated, rolling terrain rather than the flat rowhouse streets closer to downtown.

We have worked an event on this property, and the clubhouse sits on high, open ground overlooking a rolling course rather than being boxed in by neighboring buildings, so outdoor sound from a reception or a ceremony held on the grounds carries across open fairway rather than bouncing off close walls, which is worth planning around when setting speaker placement outdoors here.