Rolling Rock Club in Ligonier, PA (Ross Nine)

[Erik J. Barzeski]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_Rock_Club



Rolling Rock Club's golf course has a front nine designed in 1917 by Donald Ross and a back nine designed in the 90s and opened in 1997 by Brian Silva, supposedly in the style of Donald Ross. The Silva nine is on a worse piece of property, and I'll mostly ignore it as I found the second nine disappointing after really, really enjoying my time on the front nine. I would need many more times around the course to determine how to apportion the blame between Silva himself and the property he was given. Still, after one time around, the first nine clearly stood out above the second nine.

The pictures aren't great, and as I only played it once, I'm going to try to limit my comments as there's no way I saw a tenth of what the course has to offer, but I hope to share a little about the place as there aren't too many things here about it right now.

Yardages are from the Blue (back) tees, though there are also White, Green, and Red. Apologies for the photos - I was playing a round, so I grabbed what I could quickly without disrupting or slowing our play.

Hole 1, Par 4, 378 yards
A relatively soft opening hole. The green isn't visible from the tee, nor are some of the fairway bunkers. The green slopes away from the play, front to back.




Hole 2, Par 4, 317 yards
A blind tee shot on this hole too, a short par four. There's a cross bunker 40 yards short of the green. My friend's ball hung up on the downslope in the rough; I'd have preferred to see a bit more fairway grass to encourage more balls to roll in, discouraging more awkward 60-yard bunker shots. The green has a few distinct sections with spines coming in from the back, left, and right-hand sides. The back spine was useful in feeding a ball from the right-hand side of the fairway to a back-left pin, while the left spine would have rolled a ball played from the left side away from the hole location toward the middle of the green.






Hole 3, Par 3, 225 yards
A long downhill par three with a fronting bunker set 20 yards or so short of the green to visually distract - it appears from the tee that it's much closer to the green (it's more obviously a distance from the front of the green from the green or red tees). The green features a prominent nose on the front middle and generally slopes away from the tee, with the general grade of the land, but contains a good bit of internal and external contouring.




Hole 4, Par 4, 394 yards
A dogleg left with a LOT of room to bail out to the right, and one of the bigger greens thus far. The green slopes generally right to left and front to back, with a bigger slope encouraging the right-to-left nature. I believe you can see it in one of the photos. The challenge is going left enough to leave a shorter approach, without going so far left as to be in the trees. A tough hole back in the days of hickory.





Hole 5, Par 3, 127 yards
A great little par three with a ton of green contours. The green appears, from the tee, to be a totally different shape than it is once you get on the green. From the tee it appears to be wide and shallow, but then you get to the green and realize it's a skinny green oriented about 50° short right to back left, with a tiny back left corner with some good sized ridges and noses.




Hole 6, Par 4, 387 yards
A dogleg left par three with more bunkers, uphill, to a green with a bunker 50 yards shy of the green and a prominent tier. A solid, good hole. The approach (the green surface) is mostly blind, even from 70 yards away. A right-hand bunker and the tier dictate an approach from the left, even if the hole is cut up front, though the tier can act as a back-stop of sorts if your distance is quite good. This green has less general movement than most, but has the big tier to make up for it.





Hole 7, Par 4, 415 yards
A straight forward, down-then-up par four with a cross-bunker that seems out of place distance-wise: virtually nobody can hit the ball far enough to get into it from the proper set of tees. The green has a VERY large shoulder (the photos don't show it off much) front left, with a false front green and another big set of slopes on the right-hand side of the green. A very solid hole that we played by bouncing the ball onto the green, flying it to the back edge and using the contour there to backboard the ball toward the center, and up the right-hand side to kick toward the middle too. A good bit of internal contouring and slopes at 3-5%, too.






Hole 8, Par 4, 341 yards
A sharp dogleg left par four that plays a bit better from the left-hand side with an opening (rather than a precise carry yardage over a bunker) and a green that filters balls to the middle). Even with a hybrid, a ball turning right-to-left is ideal, but will leave little more than a wedge. The green is angled short left to long right, and continues the trend of being highly contoured, internally and externally. My host said you could bomb it over the corner, but given the width we saw when we made the corner and the thick trees to the left, it's unadvisable to do this.







Hole 9, Par 5, 482 yards
A par five with a green sloped back-to-front at 3-6% with a false front at 7-10% slope (which ties into the practice green toward the back). The hole tempts you to take it up the left-hand side, but offers all the room in the world to the right. There are bunkers that really shouldn't come into play up the right-hand side (they're 310 to 380 yards from the tee). The front of the green is open, the right and left sides bunkered, but the trick here is getting the ball past the false front but ideally leaving yourself below the hole. A tough task the day we played as the hole was cut just a few yards past the false front.






Overall, I had a great time and really enjoyed the greens in particular. Though the contours have been mildly softened to accommodate green speeds of 10 or so, they remained relatively bold with even short putts needing a foot of break on many occasions. Aside from the stupid topdressing tire tracks (you can see them in just about every green photo), the greens were in great shape and added and maintained interest in a nine-hole, par-35 layout that tops out at 3066 yards.

I can't speak enough to the architectural notes, as again I only played it once. I'm only posting this as I didn't see much about this course here, and I found it to be engaging, enjoyable, and interesting. Though there are a few blind shots, you still know what's being asked of you.

[Steve Kohler]

Thanks for the tour!  I've also played it once... the features that stuck out to me were:


- The contours of all the Ross greens, especially the 3rd with it's front center spine.  Probably the wildest Ross green I've personally seen.
- the best stretch of holes IMO was 5 through 7.  Each was memorable in it's own way and presented some unexpected challenge or strategy (like the partially obscured green at 5 or the sweeping dogleg on 6 that makes positioning your drive a priority).
- The 8th was a bit of a letdown as the tee shot felt overly tight with trees and the driving range/OB just through the dogleg.
- The Silva back 9 was mostly forgettable or awkward, especially the 11th with a tee shot from high on a hill to a fairway set at an angle below with a pond looming long and tall fescue on the short side (and mostly obscured by the angle from the tee)
- The par 5 12th was probably the only exception on the back - a stream crossing the fairway about 175 yards out and running up the right side to the bunkerless green added thought to the placement of your 2nd/3rd shots


Rolling Rock has a pretty large footprint and is a full fledged sporting club with horseback riding, hunting fields and other outdoor pursuits on the property.  It's extremely traditional and private but it's a special experience if you have the opportunity to see it.