Sandy Run Country Club

Read the GAP Magazine Centennial Piece

J. Franklin Meehan was a born entrepreneur. He dearly loved to start something from scratch. In some instances, as at Ashbourne and Spring Ford, a new golf club that had acquired ground would call him in to lay out the course, a rewarding assignment that enabled him to put his personal imprint on the raw land. But it was not quite so satisfying as conceiving the idea for a club, finding the property, laying out the course, bringing together a number of kindred souls, and actually running the club during its formative years. This he did at North Hills. And then, more than 15 years later and virtually next door, he undertook to do it again.

"Arlington," Sandy Run’s original clubhouse, was the residence of Irene duPont Hendrickson Ralph. Demolished in 1954, the house was situated in an area where the club’s main practice green is located today.

The new club was chartered in June 1923, under the name of the Edge Hill Golf Club. Signing the certificate of incorporation were Leonard W. Brown, A. J. Murdoch, Harry F. Beck, F. E. Taylor, J. Russell Breitinger, Parke Weikert, A.R. McConnell, Norman V. Holmes, W.H. Calverley, and W. Nelson Mayhew. Edge Hill subsequently acquired a part of the former I. D. H. Ralph estate, 115 acres "situate near Camp Hill Station, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, at the southeast corner of Valley Green and Walnut Roads." The club paid exactly $1,000 per acre for this parcel. In order to consummate the deal, meet the mortgage payments, and make the necessary improvements (golf course and clubhouse), the members each subscribed to a $500 bond. They had a choice of the Cash Payment Plan (hand over the $500 in one lump sum); the Yearly Payment Plan (five installments of $100 each, the first payment to be made on March 15,1924, the four remaining installments due Oct. 15 in 1924-27); or the Monthly Payment Plan. A member had to have a pretty good head for figures in order to keep the Monthly Payment Plan straight: $35 on March 15, 1924; $15 on April 15, 1924; $10 on the 15th of May, June, July, August, and September.

Frank Meehan laid out a tight and varied 18-hole course—the topography was rolling but not hilly, lending itself nicely to holes with an attractive naturalness about them. Scottish-born John B. Carruthers was retained as the club’s first golf professional. In 1927, taking its name from the stream that runs through the property—and today lends considerable character to the par-5 8th—the club became Sandy Run Country Club. Frank Meehan remained in office as president until 1936, when he was succeeded by William A. Crooke.