- Courses
- North America
- USA
- Pennsylvania
- Address175 Palmer Dr, Ligonier, PA 15658, USA
- Championships hosted
| Laurel Valley Golf Club played host to the 1975 Ryder Cup matches between the USA and Great Britain & Ireland. Team Captains were Arnold Palmer (US) and Bernard Hunt (GB & I). The story behind the 21st Ryder Cup was that America won once more on home soil but the US winning margin would have been greater had England’s Brian Barnes not upset Jack’s applecart. Barnes beat Jack Nicklaus (who said he was playing “the best golf of my life”) twice, recording perhaps the biggest Ryder Cup upset in history. “You've beaten me once, but there ain’t no way you're going to beat me again,” Nicklaus said to Barnes on the first tee before the afternoon singles… Barnes went on to win 2 & 1. USA 21 - GB & I 11. The Ryder Cup was played at Muirfield in 1973 and Royal Lytham & St Annes in 1977. |
Laurel Valley Golf Club is a private course which was designed by Dick Wilson in 1960 and then redesigned by Paul Erath in 1965. Arnold Palmer and Ed Seay made further modifications to the layout in 1988.
The 1965 PGA Championship (won by Dave Marr) and the 1975 Ryder Cup put Laurel Valley on the map. The USA team brushed GB & Ireland to one side winning comfortably 21-11. Top flight golf returned to Ligonier in 1989 in the shape of the US Senior Open which was won by Orville Moody twenty years after he won the US Open at Champions Golf Club in Texas. More recently, the 2005 Senior PGA Championship was hosted at Laurel Valley, which was won by Mike “Radar” Reid after a three-way playoff.
If you do manage to secure a game, a caddie is mandatory if you choose to walk. An experienced caddie will help you negotiate the tree-lined Laurel Valley course which is entertaining and varied with water coming in to play on numerous holes. The greens are undulating, very tricky to read and well protected by bunkers.
Laurel Valley is considered by many to be Dick Wilson’s finest design, which is positively riddled with variation and character. Probably the most memorable of the water holes is the 205-yard 14th which requires a forced carry, but perhaps the most notable is the closing hole par five where the green is ringed by water and the approach is a do-or-die affair.
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