The 1975 Ryder Cup put Laurel Valley Golf Club on the map and team USA won comfortably 21-11. The winning margin would have been greater had England’s Brian Barnes not upset Jack's applecart.
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The 1975 Ryder Cup put Laurel Valley Golf Club on the map and team USA won comfortably 21-11. The winning margin would have been greater had England’s Brian Barnes not upset Jack's applecart.
Laurel Valley Golf Club
Laurel Valley Golf Club is a private course which was designed by Dick Wilson in 1960 and then redesigned by Paul Erath in 1965. Arnold Palmer and Ed Seay made further modifications to the layout in 1988.
The 1965 PGA Championship (won by Dave Marr) and the 1975 Ryder Cup put Laurel Valley on the map. The USA team brushed GB & Ireland to one side winning comfortably 21-11. Top flight golf returned to Ligonier in 1989 in the shape of the US Senior Open which was won by Orville Moody twenty years after he won the US Open at Champions Golf Club in Texas. More recently, the 2005 Senior PGA Championship was hosted at Laurel Valley, which was won by Mike “Radar” Reid after a three-way playoff.
If you do manage to secure a game, a caddie is mandatory if you choose to walk. An experienced caddie will help you negotiate the tree-lined Laurel Valley course which is entertaining and varied with water coming in to play on numerous holes. The greens are undulating, very tricky to read and well-protected by bunkers.
Laurel Valley is considered by many to be Dick Wilson’s finest design, which is positively riddled with variation and character. Probably the most memorable of the water holes is the 205-yard 14th which requires a forced carry, but perhaps the most notable is the closing hole par five where the green is ringed by water and the approach is a do-or-die affair.