I had the good fortune to get invited to spend two days at Laurel Valley last week -- we played 27 holes the first afternoon, stayed over, and then played 18 the next morning. I certainly agree with Clark and Greg that it's a class act: great facilities (including several very cool cabins), terrific food, and excellent staff. As always, all commentary about the course shouldn't detract from the wonderful non-golf experience.
As for the course, it's got some great stuff: #10 is indeed a great hole and #18 is a great risk-reward par 5 to finish. It's also a good test of golf (and a brute from all the way back). But in general I was underwhelmed and think it's overrated by GD, which has it in the top 80 in the U.S. Part of the problem is the maintenance; while there were very few blades of grass out of place, it was way too wet, and the result was that a lot of the slopes in the fairways and greens were fairly irrelevant when hitting full shots -- you just aimed and fired. I'd love to see how it plays in firmer, browner conditions -- I think it would require a *lot* more thinking than it currently does. In fact, there were only a few times over the course of 45 holes where I really had to think about the kind of shot I wanted to hit. Ultimately, though, even if the course were firmer it would still be ranked too high at 80 (IMHO, of course).
So how does it stack up against other remote destination clubs? For starters, it feels a lot less remote to me than Sand Hills, Rock Creek and (to some extent) Ballyneal -- it's about 4 hours from Philly, 3 and change from DC and Baltimore, and an hour from Pittsburgh -- so you don't have quite the feeling of being away from civilization. Also, perhaps the layout was considered cutting-edge at the time (though I doubt it), but now it feels like just another very good, but not great, U.S. parkland course; I haven't been fortunate enough to play SH, RCCC or BN, but I think it's pretty obvious they don't have that feel. To pick another non-remote semi-destination club with which to compare it, if I could choose whether to point the car northwest to Laurel Valley or southwest to Kinloch, I'd choose the latter 8 or 9 times out of 10.
Did I have a good time? Absolutely. Would it be my top choice for a road trip from DC? Not even close.