Locust Valley to become NLE as well

[redanman]

William and David Gordon's Locust Valley in Coopersburg, PA (according to I think Tuesday's Allentown Morning Call) will become NLE in the near future.

This course started life as the local Club founded by the members who now have Berkleigh CC in Kutztown (Former home of the now defunct Wachovia Betsy King Classic LPGA tone-a-mint).  They were founded as a so-called "Jewish Club" and honestly, they took a step down to leave LVCC to go to Berkleigh.

Locust Valley has arguably a better set of green complexes than Saucon's Grace course (also W & D Gordon), but tee to green is no match by a long shot.

Planned for Locust Valley is an upscale old folks home and maybe a 9-holer of some sort.  Too bad, LVCC was easily my favorite rat-hole muni near me to go play in the winter and early spring months.  Mike Cirba lives pretty close to LVCC and maybe he'll weigh in as I know he likes it too.

p.s. for trivia buffs (sorry i left it out of this now-corrected  post)

Coopersburg, PA is the hometown of one Winnie Palmer.

MC (below)

I agree with you if they have to take two courses and rip 'em up, Blue Heron East and Locust Valley would be two of the last I'd suggest in these parts!

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Bill

Sorry to hear this news. LV is one of the great value courses in the area. I called it "Saucon Valley lite." It looks like a zoning change is needed for this to happen. What was the impetus for the members move from LV to Berkleigh?

Steve

[Mike_Cirba]

Bill;

What's more to say?  

I know that the economic conditions are going to dictate the selling off of any number of golf courses, but why is it that the good ones (i.e. Blue Heron Pines East) are the first to go?

Sort of like, "only the good die young".

[TEPaul]

" What was the impetus for the members move from LV to Berkleigh?"

If any of you would like to know the reason for that I certainly know who to call and ask. But if you don't---I won't.

Berleigh G.C. has been screwed up in a number of ways but there's some real potential there. Berkleigh's architect, Robert White, looks to have been very interesting. Just reading his bio sure does indicate that. Anyone who's played Longue Vue can tell.

[Craig_Rokke]

I was disappointed to hear the news about LV. I played it for my second time, just before Thanksgiving, and enjoyed it.
I'd agree with the assessments above. There are several vanilla par 4's that play straight ahead, through the pines, but there are also a lot of pretty fun holes, too. Good greens on most. I'm partial to the back nine.

[TEPaul]

In these parts, William Gordon, the architect (long time primary foreman of Toomey and Flynn), and later with his son David Gordon, have always seemed to have been considered by other architects and golfers to be sort of the second string or "B" level architects of the Philly School. I don't know if that reputation is deserved or not but that's the reputation they've always had around here.

William Gordon was a pretty interesting man---here's some historical trivia on him. He was very interested in public golf---he actually founded the PPGA (Philadelphia Public Golf Association) back in the late 1940s or early 1950s which in recent years sort of kicked around in relative obscurity only to be sort of taken under the wing of the GAP (Golf Association of Philadelphia) in recent years.

According to Geoffrey Cornish himself if it was not for the insistence of William Gordon he may never have gotten involved in writing that great bible (we all depend on) of golf courses around the world "The Architects of Golf".

[peter_mcknight]

As a former Lehigh Valley resident, this news is quite disappointing for me.  When I was growing up in the 1980s and wanted to play at twilight during the summer, there was no better place in the Lehigh Valley than Locust Valley.  At that time (if memory serves me correctly), it was only $12 for 18 holes--what a deal!  When the weather was good, you would have to show up at least 30 minutes before the twilight to ensure your place in the queue.

I argue that it was the best public course in the Lehigh Valley and I'm including the Center Valley Club (better conditioned at the time) in there as well.

The only hole I never liked was the 9th, the drop shot par 3 over the water--that hole sort of reminded me of the 6th hole over at Wedgewood (which was the cheapest range with the biggest buckets when I grew up--$3 for at least 150 balls).

I appreciated the 1st hole, a par 5 of 485 yards--considering there was no range there at the time, at least you could work out some of the kinks on the 1st hole and not feel the pressure to perform straight out of the car.

They should build the senior housing in the City of Allentown--plenty of people and businesses are fleeing, so properties should be cheap to buy--I just hate to see one of my hang-outs from my youth destroyed.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Many threads and mentions here about Locust Valley but I chose this to officially state as the " near future " mentioned by Redanman in 2004 is now. The course will close for development in April 2020:


Last chance to play Locust Valley: Popular golf course open until April 2020




https://www.mcall.com/sports/golf/mc-spt-locut-valley-golf-course-closing-date-20191030-4dtna22yhzhmlghck7ysbbelju-story.html

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Course remains open until end of this year!  I guess the development was set back by Covid-19.




https://www.locustvalleyclub.com/

[Joe Bausch]

Course remains open until end of this year!  I guess the development was set back by Covid-19.

https://www.locustvalleyclub.com/

Yep.  Great value in the Delaware Valley.

[mike_malone]

Pleasurable