Slippery Rock caught my attention when I learned it was the old Armco Steel course. These “employee” courses tend to be very good ie Fowler’s Mill and Shaker Run being excellent examples of company courses turned public. Alas Slippery Rock doesn’t possess such high end architecture. It started off as a man chasing a dream before being resurrected after WWII and then being bought by Armco. That should not be taken as a slight but rather a pointed observation. This is your typical western Pennsylvania track that plays up and down the hillsides.
(The short par four tenth is best approached from the left. Long hitters can possibly drive or get close with their tee shot.)
(Playing over a marshy area, the par three eleventh is a very challenging hole. The green sits atop a slight ridge and anything short, right, or long will kick into trouble.)
Slippery Rock has some very fascinating history with a Cleveland connection. The course was founded by Ralph Nicholas who hired Cleveland architect F.T. Stafford to design nine holes which today is the front nine. Stafford is one of those forgotten architects whose name isn’t mentioned in The Architects of Golf by Geoffrey Cornish and Ronald Whitten. (Many northeast Ohio golfers remember the now defunct Hawthorne Valley Country Club in Solon. For years it was regarded as a Donald Ross course, but a discussion on Golf Club Atlas posted by Sven Nilsen showed an old Cleveland Plain Dealer article that cited Frank Pelton and F.T. Stafford as the architects. Stafford is said to have built 36 courses at the time.) The back nine, which is across the street, is credited to Wynn Tredway, the man who bought the course after WWII.
(The par four fifteenth drops downhill between the treeline before doglegging a bit to the right…
…the green is exposed in the front for a running shot but possesses a slick right to left slope that will feed balls into the left bunker.)
(The uphill sixteenth arcs to the left with thick trees guarding that side. It plays much longer than its listed yardage.)
(The downhill seventeenth has this interesting green that is well bunkered. A flood a few weeks earlier completely destroyed the left greenside trap.)
I only played nine holes after finishing eighteen at the Field Club in New Castle. While I wish I had seen the front, they put me out on the back. The golf on this side as I mentioned earlier is typically for Western PA. Tredway did a fine job routing ten and eighteen next to each other and having 12,15,16,17 all parallel alternating uphill and downhill. The golf is solid and I would contend the last four holes are all difficult pars. That said, the front nine looked a tad more interesting with bunkers guarding eight of the nine greens. I think there’s also more variety with a few holes going across the slope. I’m glad I took the time to drive the thirty minutes to see the course as opposed to making a full day out of it and driving two hours there and back. The locals have a nice place to enjoy but it shouldn’t be on your radar from any significant distance. I give it a 4 (above average)(worth driving 30-40 minutes to play).
(From the tips the course is roughly 6,100 yards par 70. Both nines are pretty evenly matched. I got off to a good start, chipping in at the par five twelfth, but the course showed its teeth tossing a series of strong holes at me, and I bogeyed four of the last six.)
(The finishing hole is an uphill par four to a two tiered green. Back pins are especially difficult to get close. A horseshoe bunker saves your ball from going long onto the road.)
(The par four thirteenth has this rock formation guarding the green. The rocks are not outlining a hazard but are the hazard. The putting surface is basically a mowed down area with minor movement.)
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