It didn't take long for Lorin and Pat, who had a business degree from Emory University and was an auditor at Ernst & Young, to discover they had more in common than the club. The most important realization was that both valued family above everything, Lorin said. "It's what first drew me to him and a big part of why I love him today."
Growing up, Lorin split her time between the home of her father, William, and stepmother, Hope, in Villanova and that of her mother, Debbie, and her late stepfather, John, in Conshohocken. She has five sisters.
Pat and his family - mother Kathy, father Roger, and brother Chris - lived in Wayne.
"My mother came up in our first conversation," Pat remembered. As a novice golfer, Lorin was playing with the 9-Holers, a group of women beginners. At the time, Pat's mother ran the group. "She and my mom had actually met several times, and I'm sure my mom said, 'Oh, I have a son you should meet,' " Pat said. Lorin, he added, with her great personality and looks, got that from a lot of mothers. "She had options."
Less than a week after the party, Pat came from Manayunk to take Lorin to dinner at Audrey Claire, her favorite restaurant, a few blocks from her Center City apartment.
Soon, many dates centered on the Merion Golf Club.
How does forever sound?
The couple, now both 27, had just returned from a Fourth of July 2010 trip with Lorin's family to Ocean City, N.J. While there, Pat had asked Lorin's father - and the three sisters he could reach - if he could marry Lorin. All gave him their blessing.
On July 6, Pat had the day off. Lorin, a sixth-grade science and social studies teacher at a Philadelphia charter school, was on summer break. Pat had a plan.
Despite the brutal heat and high humidity, he persuaded Lorin to play a round with him at Merion's West Course.
