Page 12 - The Golf Guide, Fall 2016

Golf Destination

Quicksilver With quite a few golf courses
around the Pittsburgh area,
Quicksilver Golf Club proves to be
one of the exciting and fun ones.
Blessed with rolling terrain, a few
blind shots, quick and slightly
undulating greens, a few trees, and a
set of baby “church pew bunkers” at
the 18th hole, this layout makes for
a really enjoyable round (or more
than one round) of golf. The club is
located about 30 minutes southwest
of Pittsburgh.

Another golf course in the area,
Oakmont Country Club, although
not open to the public, hosted the
2016 U.S. Open won by Dustin
Johnson. When it was featured
on television, we all got a glimpse
of what a beautiful place it is.
Initially, Oakmont, opened in
1903, was designed as a links-like
course spread out over 191 acres.
The design includes 210 bunkers
(including the church pews between
holes 3 and 4 and adjacent to 15) Oakmont

and 13 holes with ditches running beside the fairways that were called “Evil” by
Ken Brown (a former European Tour golfer, who now works as a golf broadcaster).
Bob Ford, the longtime head professional, talked about how the course changed
over the years. In the early 60s, they started planting trees and it became a tree
lined course like all the others around it. Then the trees started interfering with the
ergonomics of the course. In the early 80s, a couple of the members started taking
out some of the trees and had removed 1,000 of them before they got caught. This
became a problem because quite a few of the members were ones who had planted
them. But most of the members saw the light and eventually a total of 15,000 trees
were removed. Thus, the course got back to its original design and a beautiful piece
of property was revealed.

Having never been to Pittsburgh
before, I found it to be a really
interesting place to visit with an
abundance of opportunities to have
fun. Before you head to Pittsburgh,
request the visitor’s guide so you can
plan your adventure.

For more information visit visitpittsburgh.com
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