Union League seeks Shore golf club

The Union League, that busy, block-long Center City monument to men who supplied, financed and led the victorious U.S. armed forces in the Civil War, is surveying its members about management's plans to buy a second golf club, this time "down the Shore," as President Jim Dunigan put it in a members' message Friday.

"The hallmark of a successful organization is a commitment to thoughtful strategic planning, the ability to capitalize on opportunities, a passion for excellence and careful execution," Dunigan added, in a business tone appropriate to the League's membership, activity and real estate expansion in recent years.

The club, which acquired what's now the Union League Golf Club at Torresdale in 2014, and then its Stone Harbor outpost (the Bungalow) and a Center City parking garage, is now taking members' reservations for what's now the Union League Guard House, its Gladwyne restaurant, scheduled to open for dinner under general manager Phil Leichner, Tuesdays through Saturdays, from March 1.

The League is also golf-club-shopping. Dunigan would tell members only that the League has been approached by "more than one" Shore club.

I hear one club that has been in talks is the private Wildwood Golf and Country Club in Cape May Court House, whose members, under the proposal, would be able to join the Union League, but at higher rates than they are used to paying. (Terms of the Torresdale deal here.)

"Word is leaking out," but "we have not made any decisions,"  Dunigan concluded in the note.

"We are in talks with several clubs down at the Shore," Union League marketing director Erica Martin added when I called. Still not naming names. The campaign is on.