The Truist Championship, a PGA TOUR Signature Event, begins this week at the Philadelphia Cricket Club’s Wissahickon Course, facing a weather forecast that includes potential rain through Friday before clearing for the weekend rounds. The tournament is being held at the Philadelphia venue as Quail Hollow Club prepares to host the upcoming PGA Championship.
Players arriving for practice rounds Monday encountered the prospect of damp conditions. Showers are expected Tuesday and remain possible through Friday, potentially impacting early tee times and softening the demanding Wissahickon layout. The National Weather Service Office in Mount Holly forecasts probabilities as high as 80% early in the week before diminishing.
Despite the early week rain chances, meteorologists anticipate dry, sunny conditions for Saturday and Sunday, coinciding with the tournament's climax. Temperatures are expected to reach the 60s Saturday and mid-70s Sunday. No thunderstorms are in the forecast, but rain could still lead to delays.
The Wissahickon Course, designed over a century ago by A.W. Tillinghast and restored by Keith Foster in 2014, is hosting a PGA TOUR event for the first time. It is set to play at 7,119 yards, par 70, for the Truist Championship. The course features bentgrass fairways and greens, with rough potentially growing to 2 ½ inches, emphasizing precise ball-striking.
The tournament field includes top players like Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas, who are expected to contend on the challenging track. Other players ranked high heading into the event include Justin Rose, Shane Lowry, and Corey Conners. Rose has prior success in the Philadelphia area, winning the 2013 U.S. Open nine miles away at Merion Golf Club.
The routing for the tournament differs from how members play the course, designed to optimize the infrastructure and set up the finish. The closing stretch includes holes with notable hazards, such as the 553-yard, par-5 15th featuring 13 fairway bunkers. The difficult finishing holes mean closing with three straight pars may beat the field average.
The Truist Championship offers a chance for players to sharpen their skills ahead of the major championship season. It will also determine some of the final automatic qualifiers for the PGA Championship. As of midday Monday, only a few players in the field were not yet exempt.
Dan Meersman, chief planning officer and director of grounds and facilities at the Philadelphia Cricket Club, welcomed the late growth of the course's rough.
"It came at the last minute," he said.
