Saucon Valley Country Club

 Saucon Valley Country Club
2050 Saucon Valley Road
Bethlehem, PA  18015
 mwood@sauconvalleycc.org
  www.sauconvalleycc.org

Architect:  H.B. Strong & Maxwell-Saucon, Gordons- Grace & Weyhill
Founded:  1920

Club Contacts

Director of GolfMike J. Wood  (610) 758-7177
Golf ProfessionalMike J. Wood  (610) 758-7177
Club ManagerDean Will  (610) 758-7155
General ManagerKimberly Warren  (610) 758-7150
SuperintendentJames J Roney, Jr  (610) 217-9456

Course Slope & Ratings

Old Course TeesFront 9Back 9Course
RatingSlopeRatingSlopeYardsRatingSlopePar
 Family  Male  31 110  31.7 112  4494  62.7 111  71 
 Gold  Male  33.4 118  32.1 114  5175  65.5 116  71 
 Green  Male  33.2 118  34.8 124  5708  68 121  71 
 White/Green  Male  33.5 119  35.1 130  5829  68.6 125  71 
 White  Male  34.9 124  36.1 133  6345  71 129  71 
 Blue/White  Male  35.4 130  36.5 135  6512  71.9 133  71 
 Blue  Male  36 132  37 136  6747  73 134  71 
 Black/Blue  Male  36.2 137  37.5 138  6906  73.7 138  71 
 Black  Male  36.5 139  38 140  7095  74.5 140  71 
 Family  Female  33.1 119  33.8 125  4494  66.9 122  71 
 Gold  Female  35.1 125  35.8 131  5175  70.9 128  71 
 Green/Gold  Female  35.3 128  36.6 137  5397  71.9 133  71 
 Green  Female  36 131  37.4 141  5680  73.4 136  71 
 White/Green  Female  38.4 138  36.3 133  5829  74.7 136  71 
 White  Female  39.6 143  38 141  6345  77.6 142  71 
 Blue/White  Female  38.4 142  40.2 146  6512  78.6 144  71 
 Blue  Female  39.1 144  40.8 148  6747  79.9 146  71 
 Black/Blue  Female  39.4 147  41.3 151  6906  80.7 149  71 
 Black  Female  39.8 148  41.9 153  7095  81.7 151  71 
Weyhill TeesFront 9Back 9Course
RatingSlopeRatingSlopeYardsRatingSlopePar
 Family  Male  30.7 125  31 116  3977  61.7 121  72 
 Gold  Male  33.7 127  33.1 135  5285  66.8 131  72 
 Green/Gold  Male  33.8 138  34.4 130  5602  68.2 134  72 
 Green  Male  34.3 140  35.1 132  5865  69.4 136  72 
 White/Green  Male  35.1 143  35.9 136  6200  71 140  72 
 White  Male  36.3 139  35.6 145  6399  71.9 142  72 
 Blue/White  Male  36.4 147  37 141  6733  73.4 144  72 
 Blue  Male  37.2 152  37.8 143  7082  75 148  72 
 Family  Female  32 108  32.1 114  3977  64.1 111  72 
 Gold  Female  35.5 122  35.8 131  5268  71.3 127  72 
 Green/Gold  Female  36 125  36.8 134  5540  72.8 130  72 
 Green  Female  38 140  37.5 131  6031  75.5 136  72 
 White/Green  Female  37.9 132  38.5 142  6200  76.4 137  72 
 White  Female  38.4 134  39 143  6360  77.4 139  72 
 Blue/White  Female  39.5 139  40 148  6733  79.5 144  72 
 Blue  Female  40.5 143  40.9 152  7082  81.4 148  72 
Grace Course TeesFront 9Back 9Course
RatingSlopeRatingSlopeYardsRatingSlopePar
 Forward  Male  31.8 122  31.6 113  4699  63.4 118  72 
 Gold  Male  33.2 128  32.6 117  5274  65.8 123  72 
 Green  Male  33.8 122  33.6 129  5616  67.4 126  72 
 White/Green  Male  34.1 130  34.8 126  5943  68.9 128  72 
 White  Male  34.9 136  35.3 129  6256  70.2 133  72 
 Blue/White  Male  35.5 137  35.9 130  6484  71.4 134  72 
 Blue  Male  35.8 138  36.3 131  6640  72.1 135  72 
 Black/Blue  Male  36.7 135  36.3 141  6814  73 138  72 
 Black  Male  36.7 143  37.2 136  7016  73.9 140  72 
 Family  Female  34.1 123  33.7 120  4697  67.8 122  72 
 Gold  Female  35.1 126  35.9 131  5274  71 129  72 
 Green  Female  36.3 133  36.6 132  5616  72.9 133  72 
 White/Green  Female  36.9 136  37.8 138  5943  74.7 137  72 
 White  Female  38.4 141  38 140  6256  76.4 141  72 
 Blue/White  Female  39.1 143  38.6 143  6484  77.7 143  72 
 Blue  Female  39 145  39.6 145  6640  78.6 145  72 
 Black/Blue  Female  39.5 147  40 148  6814  79.5 148  72 
 Black  Female  40.1 148  40.6 150  7016  80.7 149  72 

Directions


Club History

In the instances of DuPont Country Club and McCall Field, the clubs were founded by the companies. Not so in the case of Saucon Valley Country Club, though it is safe to say that Bethlehem Steel’s interest in it, from the beginning, was a very real one.

In 1920, 16 Bethlehem business leaders, including a core group from Bethlehem Steel Corporation, acquired 205 acres of farmland lying along the Saucon Creek, five miles south of the city. Helping to kindle the interest of prospective members was an exhibition match in mid-September at nearby Northampton Country Club that pitted Harry Vardon and Ted Ray against Chick Evans and Eugene G. Grace. Vardon, Ray, and Evans were household names in the world of golf. Grace, on the other hand, was a local amateur who played very close to par and who was, moreover, president of Bethlehem Steel Corporation. Golfing novices on hand that day could marvel at Ray’s explosive power, Vardon’s astonishing accuracy, and Evans’s brilliant iron play. They might also well envision joining the new country club their friends were talking about, the one Mr. Grace was going to make sure would be second to none.


Food service in the original clubhouse at Saucon Valley, a 200-year-old farmhouse, was cafeteria style.

Saucon Valley was to be a family club. The entrance fee was pegged at $100, with annual club dues of $50 and golf dues of $25. No charge of any kind was made for "the wife, unmarried daughters, and minor sons."

During the autumn of that year, especially on weekends, it was not uncommon to see members and their families laboring mightily to transform what had been an operating farm into a country club. There were contests to see who could pick up the most stones from the projected fairways. Pigsties had to be dismantled, as did the big barn. Chicken coops and corn cribs had to be taken down, but carefully—they could be sold. The wagon shed became the locker house (ladies upstairs, men downstairs). The old spring house and milk dispenser found new life as the golf shop. And the 200-year-old farmhouse was converted into a clubhouse, the most noticeable improvement being the addition of large porches. Food service was cafeteria-style. As the 1922 club handbook made clear, "Members and their guests shall have the privilege of eating their meals any place in the house or on the Grounds of the Club, but members so doing must return all trays, dishes, etc. to the service counter."

The original plans called for a nine-hole course, but this was not what Eugene Grace had in mind. It was one thing to make do with the farmhouse and to prevail upon three contractors to donate the cement for the swimming pool, but there would be no stinting on the golf course.

Herbert Strong, an Englishman who had recently remodeled Inwood, in Far Rockaway, Long Island, where Bob Jones would win his first U.S. Open, in 1923, was selected by Grace to design the course. Strong routed the eighteen through the cornfields and the wheat fields, over the grazing land and the acreage planted in clover. On five of the holes, including the final three, he brought the Saucon Creek prominently into play.

The course opened in 1922 to immediate acclaim. Even the uninitiated—and the majority of Saucon members were certainly that—could sense that this was an excellent design, a succession of diverse golf holes that amply rewarded well-struck shots, yet were not so penal as to discourage the novice. So sound and satisfying was the Strong design that only relatively minor revisions would be made to it in the years to come.

The new club had an 18-hole course of which it could be proud. But, as was the case at the DuPont Country Club, this was only the beginning. The coming decades would see the expansion of the club on such a scale—and with such extraordinary care and taste—that it would become a venue for five USGA championships and would provide its ever-increasing membership with a wealth of sporting facilities and social amenities matched by only a handful of country clubs in all the world.


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