Central PA golf: Iron Valley (w/ photos)

[Joe Bausch]

I've seen some chatter in the archives of GCA.com on Iron Valley (Lebanon, PA), a P.B. Dye course, but nothing of late.  So I made the trek there 2 days ago to find the course with light volume on a glorious sunny spring day.  I had not played IV in about 2 years.  I really like what they are doing with the course and it has grown in nicely.  The elevation changes are amazing and the course quite difficult (130 slope from the white tees).

The front nine is very hilly and tree lined and is called the "mine nine" as iron ore was mined there and used in the Revolutionary War.  The back nine, called the "tailings nine" because remnants of the mining process were dumped there, opens up much more so than the front and the elevation changes more modest.  There are two big lakes, one on each nine.  The routing, IMO, is pretty darn good.



Ok, enough of my yakkin'.

#1:  downhill 470 yard par 4:





#2:  tough little par 4 with an old iron ore quarry short and right of the green.





Here's a view of the 2nd green from the 3rd tee.



#3: a 177 yard par 3



The tees are right on the edge of the rock cliff in the background:



#4:  dramatic par 5, here is the view after a good drive:



A view to show the big elevation change:



#5:  dogleg right par 4 with an elevated green:





#6:  456 yard par 4



Here's a view of the green from the next tee:



#7:  a dogleg right par 5 that starts going way up, then gently runs downhill.  Here is a view from the driver landing area back to tees:



Here is a view from about 100 yards out from the green:



#8:  181 yard par 3





#9:  a dogleg right par 4, 427 yards.

A view from about 175 yards out:



A view from right of the green:



After the front nine you drive across the road you can in on to get to the back nine, which begins with a real doozy, the #1 handicap hole of 435 yards.  Here's a view from the tips.



You obviously cannot miss the fairway left here of you are down a steep embankment.



The bailout area at the green is right, but it leaves a super tough up and down:



And the green has a false front to complete the package:



#11:  a slight dogleg right par 4, 373 yards, with lots of Dye bunkering:





#12:  reachable in two par 5 of 511 yards, but the 2nd shot in is to a two-tiered green:





#13:  448 yard par 4 that has many Dye-style bunkers.  A curious hole to me.  I've grown to like it.  Here's a view from the tips.



A view from behind the green:



#14:  the apple doesn't fall far from the tree with a short, island green par 3:





#15:  a long (473 yards) slight dogleg left par 4.  Here is a view from the white tees:



A view from just over the green that is propped up a few feet so run-up shots aren't a good option.  On a hole this long I would prefer the option to run a long iron on.



#16:  another rather dramatic looking par 5 (535 yards) that wraps around water.  Here is the view from the white tees:



A view from 275 yards:



A beautiful view from the hill behind the green:



#17:  an uphill par 3 of about 200 yards:





#18:  the finishing hole is a slightly downhill par 4 of about 395 yards.  Not the best hole on the course, but a decent finish.  The power line distracting the view reminds me of the 18th at Chester Valley:





I hope you enjoyed the tour!

Some other comments:  1)  the pro there sends out some really informative e-mails to those that subscribe; he'll be very frank and honest about course conditions, etc; 2)  they have early bird and twilight rates of 35 bucks; 3)  a big ole hot dog, candy bar, and fountain soda cost about 4 bucks in the clubhouse (which is just a gussied up trailor).

Overall I took about 175 photos.  If you wish to view them all with more of my commentary, go here:

http://www.myphillygolf.com/uploads/bausch/IronValley/index.html

Also, from standing on the 10th tee I snapped a bunch of photos and made a neat QuickTime VR movie of the back nine.  That rather large file (your version of QuickTime must be rather new and needs to be able to handle H264 movies) is here:

http://darwin.chem.villanova.edu/~bausch/images/IVforGCA/10greenQTVR.mov

Joe Logan's review of IV from 2000, right after it opened is here:

http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/golf/course_guide/6235757.html

[Andy Hughes]

Joe, thanks for posting (as always).  PB has a course here near D.C. that to my eye looks
a good bit like Iron Valley. Thankfully, your course has far more wooden planking than ours    Your course also looks to have more chances for a ball off-line to be out of play or unhittable, as the site here is more gentle.

I am in the tiny majority of my friends, but I do enjoy PB's big, bold and dramatic features. 

[Dan Herrmann]

From an aesthetic standpoint, the view to the west from the 10th green is not to be missed.  You're hundreds of feet above bucolic Lebanon County farmlands, and I'd bet you could see all the way to Hershey on a clear day.

I last played IV about 5 years ago, and was turned off by #4 and #16.  I thought the fairway was extraordinarily narrow on both holes.  I also thought the front nine was significantly better than the back nine.  Of course, PB Dye had some very difficult conditions up there, having to route the back nine through mine tilings.

But it is nice to see that the grow-in has gone well.  The course is in a really nice area and I hope they're successful.

[John Foley]

Great pics Joe - Looks like you had some great weather. A few questions:

- Is #5 as tight as it looks?
- Is that swatch of rough short on #8 normal or just a maintance issue on the turf there?
- The green site on #10 looks frightening.
- Did you make the birdie on #14

[mike_malone]

 #10 reminds me of #2 at Ballybunion. I love the imtimidation there and agree with Dan that the view is nice. I like the difference between the front and the back. I'm not sure about the two par 5's that go downhill so dramatically leaving little land for a layup but the course is fun. We would play it in December on our way to our h.s. football team playing in the state finals. It made for a great day. Unfortunately, our team hasn't made it in a while. I would rather go to Glen Mills than all the up there from Philly.

[Matt_Ward]

Joe:

Iron Valley is a fun layout to play and well worth a look see for those traveling through the I-81 / I-78 corridor near Harrisburg.

Be most curious to see people compare / contrast the work PB did with his layout in Maryland and with Iron Valley. Both are rather unique and few would call them boring to play.

FYI - I am not a mega fan of the concluding two holes at Iron Valley although when the pin is flush right on the finale it can make for some anxious moments with a short iron.

[astavrides]

Overall I took about 175 photos.



Did you have a chance to hit a golf shot or two as well?   



Thanks for the pics.  I was thinking of playing here this past monday, but got rained out.  I'll try to make it there sometime.

[Joe Bausch]

Great pics Joe - Looks like you had some great weather. A few questions:

- Is #5 as tight as it looks?
- Is that swatch of rough short on #8 normal or just a maintance issue on the turf there?
- The green site on #10 looks frightening.
- Did you make the birdie on #14

John:

- #5 isn't really all that tight.
-  I think that patch of rough short of #8 is just for looks
-  I should have taken a pic from just short of the green on #10.  It really is frightening.  And whatever the wind is on the rest of the course, it will be 2-3x at that green.
-  yes.   

[Joe Bausch]

Overall I took about 175 photos.

Did you have a chance to hit a golf shot or two as well?   

Thanks for the pics.  I was thinking of playing here this past monday, but got rained out.  I'll try to make it there sometime.

I actually took over 200 photos and still completed the round in 4 hours.     Oh, this was in a cart w/ no cart path restrictions, which helps.  Note, a likely negative I would have about IV is that you'd have to be half man/half mountain goat to walk it.  I love to walk and will try it some day, but it would tough.  I tend to play fairly quickly, too fast for many of my buddies.

My trip to IV was the first of three days of fun golf for me.  Yesterday I took one of my 20 handicap buddies to Lederach.  I do like 'rach lots and I'm anxious to see how it will look after a few years.  It still needs to grow in a bit.  Note:  my 20 handicapper buddy hated it.  He won't be back.  I really wonder how many repeat customers they get.

Then today I finished up with a nice little 2.5 hour round at Inniscrone. I was concerned that over the winter they perhaps could have softened the course up a bit like they did the previous off-season (removing all the bunkers on #5).  But I'm happy to report no changes have been made, and I'm thrilled to report the condition of the layout was as good as I've seen it and they are starting to let the grass grow at the edges of the bunkers (which I'm told is how it looked the first year they were open).

Parting shot:  take Lederach and put it way out in Chester County and not near lots of people... would it be viewed much differently than Inniscrone?  Me, I think not.

[Steve Verde]

Joe,

I also played Inniscrone today.  It was in nice shape but it would have really been a treat if it wasn't playing so soft.  Everything that hit a green would stop immediately and could not take advantage of the undulations of the greens.  It my first time their and overall I enjoyed the course and it is a good value.

I played Iron Valley in 1999 when I was only 10 years old.  Thanks for refreshing my memory.  It is a good layout like I remember but those bunkers are eyesore.

[Garland Bayley]

Great pics Joe! Nothing like making a guy frustrated having to sit at a desk while viewing such a fun playground. Oh well, there is always the weekend.

[Justin_Zook]

Iron Valley is an interesting course to play.  It has a few interesting architectural features. 

My recommendation is to not play there after August.  The course becomes very dirty as the trees begin dropping their leaves.  Even though you drive your ball right down the center, you still may have to search for a couple minutes just to find it.  That was my experience the last time I played and found the experience to be very frustrating.

[Mike Bowline]

Joe, thanks for the pictures.
It looks like they did a nice job of getting grass to grow in under the trees separating the holes. The look of see-through foliage between holes with grass under is appealing in this venue.

[JNC Lyon]

Cool terrain, I love the planked bunkers and hillsides.  However, much of the bunkering looks very flat and bland, especially compared with the land that the course occupies.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

I played Iron Valley today for the first time in about 3 or 4 years. The nines have been flipped. The course was in good, not great, condition. Too many unfilled divots in the fairways.Some greens were fine and others were recently mini-punched. Otherwise, it's a difficult test for mid-handicappers, even playing from the white tees @ 6028y, 69.5/130. The blue tees are 6452y, 72.3/133. It's cartball all the way as this would be a very difficult course to walk.