PHILADELPHIA — The newest member of golf’s Grand Slam club, recent Masters champion Rory McIlroy, will play in the Truist Championship and defend his title. Xander Schauffele, who holds two major titles — the PGA Championship and the British Open — will be there, too. So will Justin Thomas, who won the PGA Tour’s last “Signature Event,” the RBC Heritage, ending a three-year drought.

They’re three of the top six golfers in the world, with nine major wins among them, and they are, arguably, the hottest golfers on the planet. But none of them will be the weekend’s biggest star.

Who will be? Or, rather, what will be?

The course, of course.

The Truist Championship will be played May 7-11 at Philadelphia Cricket Club’s famed A.W. Tillinghast design, the Wissahickon course. It’s a 103-year-old masterpiece that combines architecture and artistry on the rolling hills of Southeastern Pennsylvania. It will be the most significant event at the site since John Daly, Bernhard Langer and the Senior Players Championship visited in 2016.

The tournament, formerly — and most recently — known as the Wells Fargo before Truist became the title sponsor, usually is held at Quail Hollow in North Carolina, but Quail will host the PGA Championship, the second of golf’s four majors, the following week.

Not that the Truist is chopped liver; it’s the sixth of eight Signature Events on the PGA Tour, so designated because of their $20 million purses (more than twice a regular nonmajor), their smaller fields, the absence of a cut and a greater amount of FedEx Cup points. Signature Events are part of the PGA Tour’s arsenal as it battles the riches and exclusivity of the rival LIV Tour.

So, yeah, it’s a pretty big deal.

It’s also a pretty big deal that, because Cricket is a substitute venue, almost none of the participants will be familiar with the course, the layout, its challenges, or even its history.

No early visitors

“I mean it’s a Signature Event, a big tournament with a lot of big players playing in it. And I’ve heard really good things from people that live on the East Coast about that property,” Schauffele said last month. “If it fits in the schedule, then maybe I’ll come, but if not … I mean, Austin’s a really good caddie, so he’ll do a lot of the walking.”

Sounds like his caddie, Austin Kaiser, might be making an early scouting trip to Philly instead of Schauffele.

Most courses on the PGA Tour are annual stops, but occasionally a major will intrude and push a tournament to another site. That’s how Aronimink came to host the AT&T National in 2011 and 2012, as Congressional prepared for the 2012 U.S. Open. When Chambers Bay near Seattle hosted the 2015 U.S. Open, players visited early and consulted local caddies. But then, the U.S. Open is, perhaps, the biggest tournament in golf.

Officials say that no players have visited Cricket yet, and none are expected until the week of the tournament. None have even requested a meeting with any of Cricket’s caddies.

This should be fun.

Why the unfamiliarity?

Well, while Cricket is routinely ranked among the country’s top 100 courses, it’s an out-of-the-way venue in a region that produces few professional golfers. As such, it’s unlikely that players would find themselves in any sort of amateur competition or even play a casual round at Cricket.

Further, players didn’t know until last August where the event would be played, and by then the majors were done, the FedEx Cup playoffs were about to begin, the Presidents Cup was on the horizon, and most players were ready for some time off. A particularly harsh spring in 2025 has made golfing in the Northeast especially unappealing, and with five other Signature Events, The Players Championship, and the Masters all falling before the Truist, a trip to suburban Philadelphia to check out a course most of them will play only once in their careers just hasn’t been feasible.

One player will have a minor advantage.

The top 50 in the 2024 FedEx Cup standings through the second round of the playoffs automatically earn spots into 2025 Signature Event fields, so that’s how Eric Cole, who was 46th, punched his ticket to the Truist. And he’s got connections.

Cole’s wife, the former Stephanie Williams, is a native of West Chester. Better yet, his caddie, Reed Cochran, was caddying for his father, Russ, when the PGA Senior Tour visited Cricket in 2016.

“My schedule is pretty full, so won’t make it up there or anything,” said Cole, a slim whippet of a golfer, then pointed at his big bag man. “It’s good to have that in your back pocket.”

There’s no institutional knowledge about Cricket on the PGA Tour, but a few players know what it’s like to play a big tournament in front of the country’s most rabid sports fans. Billy Horschel finished tied for fourth in the 2013 U.S. Open at Merion Golf Club in Ardmore.

“The crowds have always been great in Philly. They support golf very well,” Horschel began, then continued, “but no, I’ll see the course the first time that Monday or Tuesday. Obviously, I’ve watched it on TV a little bit. It’s got a really good reputation, especially since the redo.”

Advice?

Kentucky-based golf architect Keith Foster completed the “redo” in 2014, but Foster does not presume to offer wisdom to the best players on the planet.

“They will look at it through their lens,” he said.

After all, Cricket was not built with Xander and Rory in mind. Like them, most players have developed games that begin with monster drives that leave short irons into greens, and they simply throw darts at pins. Between the hickory-shafted clubs and the balata-sap balls, that game didn’t exist in 1922.

“Back then, it was a ground game, and you had to use the foreground,” Foster said. “Tillinghast believed the green actually started 30 to 40 yards out, with the ground that leads into the green. It starts on the fairway and blends seamlessly into the green-pad. It’s this soft grading that ties in.”

Foster compared the style to that of Winged Foot Golf Club, just north of New York City, where LIV Tour star Bryson DeChambeau won the 2020 U.S. Open. DeChambeau won’t be at Cricket — LIV players are banned from regular PGA Tour events — but McIlroy and Schauffele both finished in the top 10 at Winged Foot.

Will that experience give them an advantage next week?

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