Here is my report on the outing today at Wyoming Valley CC:
What a beautiful day for golf! There were about 15 of us who attended- mostly members of the Shivas Irons Society.
Wyoming Valley was established in 1896. Tillinghast was hired to do the course in 1924 and the course opened on July 4, 1925. In 1935, the clubhouse was destroyed by fire and the club decided to rebuild it in a different location and changed the original routing. Over the years, work has been done on the course, the most recent of which was redoing the bunkers with Rick Wolfe of the Tillinghast Society as a consultant. The bunkers do not have the typical Tillie flashing as found at Winged Foot, for example. The course is short- 6178 from the blues- par 71, 71.2/130. The greens are small and sloped but had not fully recovered from aerification and were not as fast as usual. As noted, the holes of interest are the short dogleg left 2nd, the drop shot par3 7th, the consecutive par5s 11&12 with the 11th featuring diaganol cross bunkering and the 17th, a sort of double dogleg par4 of 407y.
Tillie did a lot of work in the area in the 1920s probably as a result of his Shawnee course. This was a thriving economic time- coal and railroads produced great wealth. He ventured further west in PA to do Williamsport and Sunnehanna.
Although not one his most famous courses, WVCC was fun to play and historically interesting.
Steve