Brian Quinn, a former touring pro now in his llth season as head men’s coach at Philadelphia’s Temple University, is part of a new corporation formed to acquire Plymouth Country Club in Plymouth Meeting, Pa., which will now be rebranded as The 1912 Club, in recognition of the year it was founded. The club features a William Flynn-designed golf course that will now be renovated under the direction of Ron Prichard.
Brian Quinn, the head Men’s Golf Coach at Temple University in Philadelphia, joined with another principal partner to purchase Plymouth Country Club in Plymouth Meeting, Pa., The Temple News reported. The purchase of the 127-acre country club in Plymouth Meeting, Pa., was approved unanimously by members in late March.
Quinn and his partners formed a corporation, 1912 Club LLC, to buy the club, which will now be renamed The 1912 Club, in recognition of the year it was founded. The purchase price was not disclosed.
The property features a William Flynn-designed golf course and will now serve as the home course for Temple men’s and women’s golf.
Quinn, who is in his 11thseason as Temple’s men’s coach, was a four-year letterwinner for the school from 1987 through 1990, and then competed as a professional golfer for 16 years, winning 17 professional tournaments while playing in the U.S. as well as on the Asian PGA, South African PGA and South American PGA tours.
Quinn is also currently the Director of Instruction at the BQ Golf Academy in Conshohocken, Pa., and one of the attractions of becoming part of the group that purchased Plymouth CC, he told The Temple News, is that it’s only about a 10-minute drive from the academy’s facilities.
“BQ will still be open for the present time,” Quinn told The Temple News. “We are going to be building a state-of-the-art practice facility at The 1912 Club coming in October as well.”
The new 1912 Club will also see a major restoration of the 6,608-yard, 18-hole championship course designed by Flynn, who also designed the course at Southhampton, N.Y.’s Shinnecock Hills Golf Club that will host the U.S. Open in June, as well as Merion Golf Club’s East Course and courses at Lancaster (Pa.) Country Club, The Country Club in Brookline, Mass., and Cherry Hills Country Club in Denver, Colo.
For the renovation at the 1912 Club, architect Ron Prichard will head the project. Prichard has restored other prominent courses in the Philadelphia area, including a 2003 project for the Donald Ross-designed course at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pa., which will host the BMW Championship to end the FedExCup playoffs this September, and the 2027 PGA Championship.
Quinn’s uncle is a member of Worcester (Mass.) Country Club, the first host of the Ryder Cup Tournament in 1927, and Prichard also redesigned that course, Quinn told The Temple News.
“Ron went up there and did magical work,” Quinn said. “Seeing it firsthand, I knew that he would be the guy for us. We are really excited about his vision, and I have some vision, too, of what I want to see.”
“I’ve done a lot of work [at Plymouth CC] over the years with my playing lessons and other things, and it was time for a change there,” Quinn added about his involvement with the purchase of the club. “A few members approached me about it, and we went from there.”
“This has honestly probably been about a year in the making,” he said. “We are really excited to do a lot of changes on the clubhouse and the golf course. We are spending a lot of money to enhance all facets of the facility.”
Quinn’s Temple teams have practiced at the Plymouth CC facility for about seven years, and Quinn thinks it will now serve as “a great setup for the kids.”
“What I hope to utilize the golf course for, outside of this, is to have a top-notch college golf tournament here,” he told The Temple News. “Once we get all of the [improvements] done, I think that will be very exciting.”
Although having a course to call home could be a recruiting tool, Quinn told The Temple News that he won’t talk about it with future prospects.
“I don’t want to be the guy who’s like, ‘Oh, I own this golf course,’ or, ‘This is my place,’” Quinn said. “That’s not my style. But it is Temple’s home, and has been our home.”
Now, as a coach, instructor and country club owner, Quinn told The Temple News that he will strive to increase access to the game. One of the biggest flaws of country club golf, he said, is that young golfers can’t get onto a course until 2 or 3 p.m. and that they run into other restrictions imposed on juniors at private clubs.
As The 1912 Club, Quinn told The Temple News, he hopes to have a club with a much more family-oriented atmosphere.
“Golf is a great sport but I want it to grow, and you have to do that from [when players are] very young kids, giving them the opportunity to play,” he said.
To that end, The 1912 Club also plans improvements to its 30,000-sq. ft. clubhouse, banquet facility, tennis and swimming pool area. And it will also do more to promote its tennis instructor, former Temple University star Fazal Syed, who was recently honored as the 2017 Middle States Professional of the Year by the United States Tennis Association.
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