Philadelphia is a great golf city. This is an irrefutable fact. However, accessing those golf courses can be a problem. Most of the good courses are private. And when it comes to public golf, most courses limit the ability of singles to make tee times. Either you need two people or you have to tag along with a previously established group. (I suppose you can also call the course, but this is 2026, nobody calls places anymore!)
This brings us to Macoby Run, a relatively isolated golf course in the rural hinterlands between Philadelphia and Allentown to the north. It is the epitome of unpretentious golf: built on a family farm, designed by a random landscape architect from South Carolina, and possessed of a mere five bunkers. More importantly, on a pleasant Sunday afternoon it was fairly wide open and allowed singles to make tee times. Plus, from the pictures I saw it looked like it was built on some decently interesting land, so at the very least I figured it wouldn't be a complete snooze.
The first hole is 410 yards and plays to a blind plateau fairway well above the tee. It's wide open for the most part, but while the fairway has a moderate left-to-right tilt, that tilt becomes quite severe left of the fairway. A good drive will leave a wedge or short iron slightly downhill to a medium-sized green with a single bunker front-right and a big dropoff behind.
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| The first hole. |
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| The first green. |
The second hole is a fairly short par 4 at 330 yards, made even shorter by the dramatically downhill tee shot. Technically water is in play, but so long as you can carry your tee shot a hundred yards, you'll be okay. The green here is like the first — medium sized and relatively undramatic, though not devoid of contours and bumps — and is bunkerless, so getting up and down isn't too big and ask.
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| The second hole. |
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| The second green. |
The third hole is a fairly short par 5 at 480 yards and definitely reachable with two good shots, but you have to be mindful on the tee shot of the very narrow gap in the trees that the fairway threads between right where a driver will end up. End up in the wrong place, and you'll likely be forced to lay up short of Macoby Creek, which cuts across the fairway about 150 yards from the green. If you've found the fairway, the second shot is steeply uphill to a medium-sized, two-tiered green.
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| The third hole. |
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| Approaching the third green. |
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| The third green. |
The fourth hole is 140 yards and plays dramatically downhill, making it one of two short downhill par 3s at Macoby Run. Always nice to come across. This is the more interesting of the two, made so by the green, which is tilted quite severely from back to front. There's also a pair of small knobs, one left and one right, to further complicate the green. Obviously, hitting the green isn't a huge challenge, but holding it? That's a bit trickier, and two putting is very far from guaranteed here. There's a lot of break to putts on this green. This is probably the best hole on the course.
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| The fourth hole. |
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| The fourth green. |
The fifth hole is 355 yards and plays uphill to a fairway that turns sharply to the left about 250 yards out. You could hit driver if you want, but unless you've got a big draw on command, a fairway wood or even long iron is really all you need. The second shot is slightly downhill to a green angled from left to right, which means you're better off favoring the left side. It's funny; there is a bunker next to this green, but it's barely a consideration, which really makes you wonder why it's there at all.
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| The fifth hole. |
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| The fifth green. |
The sixth hole is another short par 5, playing just over 470 yards, but like the third, trees present an issue. This hole turns sharply to the right about 200 yards out, with some trees guarding the corner. If you want to hit driver, you need to challenge those trees in some way, otherwise you'll going 50 yards through the fairway. Do that with either a big cut or by going over, and the green is reachable in two. There are no bunkers on this hole, but the green is very long and has plenty of slope to it. It's very easy to find the wrong part of the green, and that can lead to three putts.
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| The sixth hole. |
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| Approaching the sixth green. |
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| The sixth green. |
The seventh hole is 335 yards and is probably the easiest hole on the front nine. Other than a few overhanging branches coming in from the left near the tee box, there's almost no challenge to the drive. The fairway is wide and there are no hazards. A good drive will leave you with just a little wedge (if that) to a relatively simple green.
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| The seventh hole. |
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| The seventh green. |
The eighth hole is 390 yards, but plays a bit longer since it heads uphill the entire way. OB lines the right side, which you obviously want to avoid. The second shot is uphill and mostly blind. The green here is a bit smaller than some others and has some decent undulation to it, but otherwise this is also a pretty simple hole.
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| The eighth hole. |
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| The eighth green. |
The ninth hole is 235 yards, and while that distance is somewhat mitigated by the steeply downhill tee shot, both times I've played Macoby Run the hole has played into the wind. This is very much a fairway wood for most golfers. The green, while large, is quite undulating and split into multiple sections, so even if you do find the green, par is far from guaranteed. The open nature of the green does mean that recovering is pretty easy, so while you have to work for par, bogey is pretty easy. Considering there's likely a fair number of people who need driver on this hole, four is hardly a bad score.
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| The ninth hole. |
That's it for this week, next week we'll check out the back nine.
