Perhaps it is fitting that the AT&T National has come to Aronimink, for the tournament has always been closely identified with Woods.
Personally flawed but professionally peerless, the multiracial Woods is considered by many to be the greatest golfer of any hue to ever tee it up.
And Aronimink has played a significant, if not always flattering, role in the racial evolution of a sport that had slammed the door on blacks longer than any other.
Woods had been the four-year-old tournament's host until his infidelity scandal prompted sponsor AT&T to distance itself from him. But his Tiger Woods Foundation remains a beneficiary, and he plans to play this week.
When the tournament announced a two-year commitment to Aronimink in late 2008, Woods called it "an amazing course with a rich history in golf."
Much of that history involves golf's difficult relationship with race.
In 1962, Aronimink hosted the PGA Championship - and, in doing so, provided refuge to the PGA after California's attorney general effectively chased the organization out of his state for racial discrimination.
In 1990, a more enlightened PGA of America challenged Aronimink's all-white status. It refused to allow the club to host its 1993 PGA Championship without first admitting a minority as a full member.
Aronimink responded by pulling out, saying it could not meet the PGA's deadline. It refused to jump a minority golfer ahead of others on its waiting list.
It was not until 1998, seven years after first applying, that Ken Hill came aboard with full privileges.
"It was a social experiment," Hill recalled last week. "There is no other way to put it."
Today, says Aronimink president David Boucher, the club has multiple minority and female members, though he declined to say how many.
