This course flies under the radar a bit. It is located in south central PA, not all that far from Lancaster CC and the courses at Hershey. GCAer Jim Sherma set this round up for me, Mayday Malone, Mike Trenham, Tim Martin, and a few other Hershey CC members.
You can find some pretty decent discussion of this course using the search engine. There is at least one thread that included comparing and contrasting the Ross routing used versus one by William Flynn, which obviously was not used (unfortunately some of the figures in that thread are no longer are available):
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,33820.0.htmlHere is the hole-sequencing (clickable) on an annotated 2012 Google Earth aerial:
Here is the scorecard, where some might wish it could play longer:
Really interesting old clubhouse, with the practice green close by, which is just a few yards from the 1st tee. Nice and convenient.
#1. Slight dogleg-right par 4 (416 yards).
The bunker right near the turn-point is only 200 yards out. Your better players will probably not hit driver.
Tee view (the lighting this day was good much of the time, but not so good on the first hole):
Note: all pictures are clickable to bring up 1400 pixels-wide views.
Approach view, where you can see a typical technique Ross used by locating three greens in close proximity:
View from short of the green:
View from the back of the green, which is reasonably representative of many others at CC of York:
#2. Up-then-down-then-up par 5 (511 yards). The No. 1 stroke hole.
Tee view (those fairway bunkers are definitely in play; but I think really big hitters can get over the rise and really make this a long par 4):
Most people will have a blind 2nd shot over the rise.
Once over the hill the view is as follows:
I think another aspect of the No. 1 stroke rating is the green, which is sloped from back to front pretty severely, as this picture from the right rough somewhat depicts:
Here's a view from the hill behind the green:
#3. Slightly downhill, long par 3 (237 yards).
Tee view:
My preference, since so many will be bouncing a ball into the green and the ground leans to the right, would be to mow out the fairway to the left greenside bunker.
From short and right of the green, which is sort of a semi-punchbowl:
View from above the green:
So after that pretty tough long par 3, the fourth plays back up the hill for the drive at least.
#4. Par 4 (369 yards).
This is probably a birdie hole for your better and longer players. The drive looks like the one on the 2nd hole, although to get to the top of the rise (maybe 20 yards past the fairway bunkers) isn't quite as far as on 2. But I rarely carry a drive say 250y in the air uphill these days, so I think many will have a blind or semi-blind 2nd shot.
Tee view:
Get to near the top of the rise and a decent look for the 2nd shot remains:
Good drive leaves simple, clean look in:
This view from the right edge of the green looking to the left edge shows a neat spine starting from the anchor point in the back of the green:
#5. Dogleg-left par 4 (393 yards).
This is a tough driving hole, IMO. A blind shot where you can't see a bunker at the turn of the dogleg. Your better player will probably not hit driver here.
Tee view:
Here's that fairway bunker I mentioned that Sherma is ticked since he ended up on the steep grass face:
A good drive sitting up on the upper tier, which tumbles down across a private road, leaves this view for the 2nd:
From the bunkers short and left of the green:
From just over the green (par 3 6th green to the left) with some wonderful contouring (I was back left on the green and getting close to that pin was fun):
#6. Downhill par 3 (154 yards).
Tee view:
The pond does extend a bit more than you can see from the tee:
View from left of the green and pond, essentially the back of the 7th tee:
#7. Par 4 (368 yards).
Another uphill par 4, steeper at the beginning, moving a bit to the left.
Tee view:
Big drive leaves this uphill approach shot with a short iron:
From just short of the green, with a real good pin location:
As shown better by this view from left of the green:
#8. Slight dogleg-right par 4 (414 yards).
Near the tee view from earlier in the morning when playing the 1st hole:
Approach shot view (where some trees have been removed, but I guess not enough with a fan in place):
From short of the right greenside bunker:
View down the hole from over the green:
#9. Par 5 (489 yards).
I would consider this another par 4.5 hole. Big hitters don't really need driver here, if they do, they must be careful to not hit through the fairway.
Tee view, where hugging right is best, and you can sort of see a 2nd bunker up on the right:
Here is that 2nd bunker, that a big drive blows by one the left side:
Good drive leaves a view like this of about 200 yards in:
From 50 yards out:
View from over the green:
Back nine Monday.