Weyhill at Saucon Valley, with pics

[Bill Brightly]

Here are some pictures of Weyhill.

Hole 1, par 4. Slight dogleg right. Pond on right, Saucon Creek behind  green






Hole 2, a great par 3, 170 from the back tees, significant right to left, back-to-front tilt. Saucon Creek in front.


Hole 3. Long straightaway par 4. (Can you identify the GCAer?)


Good drive leaves this second shot



Hole 4. Dogleg left, pond on right side of green


Hole 5. Par 3, 160-195 yards, Saucon Creek hard to right of green




Hole 6. Long, double-dogleg Par 5. Two good shots leaves this short iron approach:



Hole 7. Par 4, dogleg right. Good drive or 3-wood leaves this shot. (Note: no greenside bunkers.)


Of course, this GCAers refused to hit 3-wood, tried to draw a driver over all the trees on the inside of dogleg, leaving this:





View of the Grace course as you walk to 8th tee



Hole 8. Sharp dogleg right, then over creek to green



Hole 9. Straightaway par 5, but the landing area is blind.


Second shot


Hopefully, a wedge to green:



Hole 10, long par 4



Second half of the hole sees the right half of fairway and rough slope steeply to the right, making second shot dangerous unless you hit very good drive. (This guy did not!)



Hole 11, straightaway par 4



Hole 12, long par 5. Drive must be kept right of trees on left. (The course gets REALLY good from here on in...)



Good drive puts you here and you can carry a huge depression


Leaving a wedge or short iron to a large, two-tiered green




Hole 13, sharp dogleg right to a blind landing area



Good drive justs starts the hole, the green is in play, dont be long!



Hole 14, Great par 3 over an old quarry, Significant right to left tilt on green



Hole 15. Par 4 down a hill, then back up a STEEP hill





Hole 16. Dropdown par 3 about 130 yards


View from behind the green looking back at tee



Hole 17. Short par 4. Saucon Creek on left, "hedgerow-type" bunkers on the right.



One of several old lime kilns



Hole 18. Long double-dogleg par 5.




Good drive leaves this shot


Good second shot leaves a wedge and this shot



Weyhill guest house





Hope you enjoyed!

[Sean Leary]

Amazing to me how pics make all the parkland courses look like they need tree removal.  Its the two dimensional thing that makes courses look narrower, cart paths more glaring etc.

[Jed Peters]

That guy needs to NOT wear euro-cut shirts.

Whoa.

[Jed Peters]

Hey! Funny enough I got to play this course recently enough! I had a great match with the member who hosted me--what a great guy.

And that guy in the earlier photos posted by you Bill looks like he's got game!

Weyhill I thought was better than Grace. I didn't have a chance to play the Old Course, but it looked lovely. I would have to agree with Bill and say that the course really starts at 12....although there are some cool second shots, and the Par 3s were pretty good.

Regarding tree removal, the Saucon courses REALLY need some of them to open up the vistas around the property. I think they should keep SOME trees, but there's just too much going on with the different types, sizes, etc.

As for the course, well....even though it shows that there is some SERIOUS potential out there (and what's existing at weyhill is pretty damn good!) it just felt "tired" to me--and I'm sure that's because of the mid-50s design, plain and simple. There were spots that I thought--wow, this hole, with just a few tweaks here and there could be all-time! There's some good property there, for sure.

Here's my pictures:

Hole 2:  (I would like to point out that there are INCREDIBLE drop areas at Saucon Valley. So good, in fact, that you can get up and down from them and halve your hole.)



3rd Hole Tee Shot:



4th Hole:



Green:



8th Hole, Second Shot:



10th Hole, Second Shot:





14th Hole: This was the best hole we played on the property. I wish it was firmer....that green is really pretty cool. You can sling a draw off the right side to get to a left pin.



15th Hole: Second best hole on the property. Would be first if the tee shot wasn't so bland.



17th Hole: Tee shot. This tree needs to be cut down. I KILLED a drive 4 yards here.



Second shot.

[Bill Brightly]

Sean,

I agree that pictures make parkland courses look more "over-treed" than they are in real life. (I don't know why that is!) But there are definitely a few trees that can go at Weyhill...

In terms of cart paths, there are actually very few here and many guests comment on that. Just over the bridges, a couple of really steep hills, and one or two wet areas. (I almost did not post the Grace picture because of the service road...but I thought it was a neat view.

Jed,

Most of the major work done in recent years has been on the Old Course as they prep for the US Women's Open next year (and last week's Pennsylvania Am). There are plans to re-build the bunkers and do some other work on Weyhill soon. I can't wait!

[TEPaul]

That Weyhill guest house is really lovely. See that first photo of it? The last two windows on the left above the green and white awning was my room Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, last week during the Pennsylvania State Amateur held on Saucon's Herbert Strong "Old Course." Up and out there testing pin positions at 6:30-7:30am each day. In my opinion, that is hard to top. God do I just love doing that. What a way to get to know greens and a course's architecture. I do know what those "Old Course" greens were stimping at and I definitely ain't saying! 

[Charles Scalzott]

Great pictures.  I played in the PA Amateur last Monday and Tuesday on the Old Course and that was a real treat.  The bunker work they have done really tranformed the look of the fairway bunkers to be true beautiful "hazards" - hazards they are as it was a challenge to get anything more that a 6-iron out over the lip.  I believe the bunkers prior to the restoration were very flat faced and benign.  There was a long backup in the second round...the official came back to appologize and apprise us of the situation.  Someone was in a fairway bunker on the left of the 7th hole and plugged their next attempt 6 inches into the face...couldn't get the ball out - dropped a ball and plugged the next one into the sod atop the bunker face.  As the official began to review the next ruling the guy said "I just want to withdraw" - with 2 holes left in the 2nd round!  What an idiot.

In addition to the bunker work was the addition of length...quite a few 460+ par 4s including the 13th which played 496...only hole without a bunker on the entire course...quite a beast still.

Sorry to thread jack...someone above mentioned the Old Course and I thought I would add my recent experience.  All in all I loved the course.  A lot of really good holes...only holes I thought that didn't quite blend as well with the others were the 3rd and 9th...not bad holes...just presented a way that seemed different from the rest.

[TEPaul]

" There was a long backup in the second round...the official came back to appologize and apprise us of the situation.  Someone was in a fairway bunker on the left of the 7th hole and plugged their next attempt 6 inches into the face...couldn't get the ball out - dropped a ball and plugged the next one into the sod atop the bunker face.  As the official began to review the next ruling the guy said "I just want to withdraw" - with 2 holes left in the 2nd round!  What an idiot."


Chuck:

Sorry about that holdup. Were you in a group with either Mark Miller or Mike Owsik? Those are a couple of players I remember in the groups that got held up. That Rules official was me.

[Sean_A]

Bill

Thanks for posting.  How did you like the bunkering?  It strikes me as a bit redundant until later in the round - large, roundish dishes often using the same scheme or a slight variation of the scheme.  These remind me of the bunkering at Rolling Green.   

Ciao

[Bill Brightly]

Sean,

Weyhill was designed by William Gordon. I think it opened in 1961. The bunkers you see are his style. This is such a great site for a golf course, it will be exciting to see how the bunkers are re-built.

The Old Course was built by Herbert Strong in the 20's and the bunkers were recently re-built. Very diferent style than at Weyhill. Here is Hole 15 on the Old (Hole 12 in the rotation used at the Penn Am and the Women's Open.)

[Charles Scalzott]

Chuck:

Sorry about that holdup. Were you in a group with either Mark Miller or Mike Owsik? Those are a couple of players I remember in the groups that got held up. That Rules official was me.

[/quote]

Not your fault at all.  I was playing with Christian Davis and Jeff Griest in the last group that day.  I think you watched us play the entire 7th hole after we spoke.  That was an amazing shot to plug a ball that deep into the face.  The bunkers played very firm during the tournament.  Hope to see you at another event soon.

Chuck

[peter_mcknight]

Bill...

Thank you for the wonderful photos.  Boy, do they bring back wonderful memories for me during my caddy days at SVCC 1985-1992.  Seeing the Weyhill clubhouse and remembering the famous Jack hamburgers, ah, the nostalgia.

The course was designed by Wm and David Gordon.  It opened in 1968 as a sort-of separate golf venue for top Steel management.  The original was 6968 yards par 72.  The current 11th hole was the original opener, while the 8th served as the 18th hole.  The current first was the original 11th hole.

From what I can tell of the photos, there are far less trees on Weyhill than when I was there during the aforementioned period, especially on the right of the 15th hole.  That hole used to be quite claustrophobic from the tee.

On the drop-shot par 3 on the back, there is an alternate tee ground nearly level with the green near some old fireplace down the hill and to the left of the existing back tee.

Weyhill has the best land for a golf course on the entire SVCC property, but, as I wrote in My Home Course section, it needs work to accomplish that.

Lastly, since when were shorts allowed on the golf course?  When I was there, golfers and caddies had to wear long pants.

[David Stamm]

Thanks for the pics Bill. There are some very interesting looking holes there for sure. I'm assuming that's Jed in the photo's?

[Jed Peters]

I'm assuming that's Jed in the photo's?

Yep. In the blue shirt that's way too tight for him.

[Bill Brightly]

Peter: I believe this is the 5th season that shorts have been permitted.

You want more Jed Peters pics? No problem!

What a swing finish! Note the tree on the left, 30 yards left of the trap, because that's where the ball is going!



Here's Jed sizing up how must hook the next one. (He hooked it on the green!)

[Jed Peters]

Whoa, I just re-saw those photos.

That was a HORRIBLE golf swing.

Thankfully the second one was better.

[Tommy Williamsen]

I played all three courses this spring.  The Old was excellent.  I don't know what it was like before the renovation, but it is terrific now, although it is a bit over bunkered.  I think my favorite of the three may be Weyhill.  I liked the seclusion of the place, the terrain and the way it was routed over that terrain.  All in all Saucon is a pretty special place.

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