The Green’s Ladies Golf Club kicked off the end of summer in style on Saturday, August 29th, hosting our annual Swing & Swim at The Nile Club in Yeadon, Pennsylvania. More than 80 guests came out to celebrate, including GLGC members, our friends from the NNGA Philadelphia Chapter, the Walnut Lane Ladies League, and plenty of children and family members who made the day feel like one big reunion.
Why The Nile Club
Choosing The Nile Club as our gathering place wasn’t just about finding a pool for the afternoon. It meant celebrating in a space with real historical weight behind it.
The Nile Swim Club has been open to all races since it opened in July 1959, and it holds the distinction of being the first private swimming pool owned and operated by African Americans in the United States. Its founding grew directly out of exclusion: in 1957, Zoe Mask, Carson Puriefoy, and Elmer Stewart were turned away from the whites-only Yeadon Swim Club, and rather than accept that, they and other neighbors set out to build something of their own. That effort became official on September 30, 1958, when organizers incorporated the Nile Swim Club of Yeadon as a Pennsylvania non-profit. Nile Swim Club +2
When the doors finally opened in July 1959, more than a thousand people showed up, and by the club’s own telling, plenty of them didn’t even know how to swim yet — they just knew they finally had a place where they were welcome. The club drew members from across the Philadelphia area and beyond, including New Jersey, and offered a full slate of programming for a community that had been shut out elsewhere. Arcadia PublishingDowntown West Chester
The club’s history has not been without hardship. Like many community institutions built against the odds, it weathered real financial struggles over the decades, at one point facing repeated threats to its survival. But the surrounding community rallied to keep it standing, and today it remains a living landmark — recognized in 2021 with an official Pennsylvania historical marker, celebrated by residents and civic leaders as a symbol of what a community can build when it refuses to accept exclusion. Phillytrib
A Fitting Home for the Day
There’s something fitting about GLGC bringing its own community, one built in a similar spirit of persistence and pride, to a place with that kind of legacy. Both organizations trace back to a moment when Black families and golfers were told “no,” and both answered by building something lasting of their own.
From poolside laughter to golf talk under the summer sun, the Swing & Swim was a reminder of what GLGC is all about: community that stretches beyond the course. It’s one thing to share a fairway together. It’s another to share a pool day, a plate of good food, and an afternoon of pure joy at a place that has meant so much to so many for almost 70 years.
A huge thank you to everyone who came out and made this year’s Swing & Swim one to remember, and to The Nile Club for hosting us in a space that carries so much history. Here’s to many more summers of good times and good company with GLGC.
