It took a recent email from an out-of-towner to make me realize just how much I’ve come to like the Golf Course at Glen Mills.

 

The email was from an avid golfer who was coming to Philadelphia on a business trip for several days.  He expected to have some downtime and he wanted a recommendation on the three best daily fee courses in the area.

 

Without even having to think about it, I put Glen Mills at the top of the list. With Hartefeld National and Pine Hill both more private than semi-private these days, it’s hard to imagine that Glen Mills wouldn’t make anybody’s list of Top 3 local courses you can play. (Update: As of Jan. 1, 2010, Pine Hill is Trump National- Philadelphia, and it’s completely private).

 

In 2001, the year after Glen Mills opened, Golf Digest ranked it seventh on its annual national list of best "New Upscale Courses."  The following year Golf magazine ranked it fifth in the nation on its list of "Top Ten You Can Play."  Not to be outdone, Golfweek soon followed by ranking Glen Mills as the No. 1 daily-fee course in Pennsylvania (it’s currently ranked No. 2, behind the Mystic Rock course at Nemacolin Woodlands resort in western Pennsylvania.)

 

But as good as the Golf Course at Glen Mills is, the story behind it is even better. The course is, after all, owned and operated as part of the Glen Mills Schools, the oldest reform school in the nation, dating back to 1826. (Bausch Collection photo gallery)

 

At the bag drop, in the pro shop, out on the mowers, golfers are likely to encounter students who’ve had a brush with the law and are there to learn the rewards of walking the straight and narrow, as well as life and job skills.  Besides the job training the golf course provides about 40 kids at any one time, proceeds from the 33,000-plus rounds go to fund college scholarships for Glen Mills graduates.

 

"These kids have never had a chance in life," Ron Pilot, the retired businessman and Glen Mills board member who conceived the course, told me not long after it opened.  "We give them a chance."

 

A chance and, often, a dream.  During a recent round at Glen Mills, I struck up a conversation with the young man ferrying me out to the range to meet my playing partner.  It turned out he was from one of the toughest neighborhoods in Philadelphia and had 18 months to go at Glen Mills.  After that, he had his sights set on college, then law school.

 

"If he gets in, he can count on a full scholarship," said Pilot, father of seven and grandfather of two dozen, for whom Glen Mills is a labor of love.

 

Even without the compelling back story, Glen Mills would crack my Top 3 daily-fee courses around town.

 

Open since 2000, the 6,646-yard, par 71 Bobby Weed design is a delight from start to finish, rolling across 235 picturesque acres of Chester County countryside.  On several holes, the stately red stone buildings of Glen Mills School, which looks more like a cozy college campus than a reform school, come into view in the distance.

 

For Weed, a Florida architect who was recommended to Pilot by his old boss and mentor, Pete Dye, Glen Mills was his first big project in the Northeast.  He did not waste the opportunity.

 

After a opening hole that seems easy enough but is a bogey waiting to happen, Glen Mills quickly becomes a three-ticket thrill ride.

 

The second hole, a 431-yarder with an uphill fairway that swerves left, culminates with a flat, seemingly benign green that will give you fits.  Even a perfectly struck putt slides past the hole like it never had a chance.

 

The beast of the front nine is the par 5 fourth, a 571-yard double dogleg that’s uphill, then downhill as it wends its way around an abyss that is a 235-yard carry for daredevils.

 

The outward nine also includes the most maddening green within a 100-mile drive, on the long uphill par 3 seventh.  Not only is the green four clubs deep, it’s got more mounds than an almond joy and more shelves than a grocery store.

 

The toughest par on the front nine, however might just be the deceivingly difficult, almost-driveable eighth.  Only 325 yards from the back tees, the trick to the eighth is negotiating a green that is elevated, shallow and sloped and rejects all but the most delicate approach shots.

 

The back nine starts out with a dramatic downhill par 3 that feels like you’re playing from the roof of a skyscraper, to a huge tiered green below.  You can hit the green and be two zip codes away from the hole.

 

By far the most controversial hole is the 11^th, a short (376 yards) par four with a daunting-looking ribbon-thin fairway that is squeezed from the right by weed-filled mounds up the right side and on the left by a craggy creek.  The play, it turns out, is to hit a 3-wood or long-iron off the tee, hoping to find the landing area that is not easily visible from the tee.

 

Weed grabs your attention again with the two closing holes  -- a par 5 that plays longer than its 484 yards and a long par 4, both of which require long carries off the tee.  Together, they are a one-two punch in the gut you won’t soon forget.