Saucon Valley Country Club

Overview

Saucon Valley Country Club in Bethlehem, PA is a picturesque private club retreat offering a myriad of exceptional recreational and social experiences with an emphasis on golf.

Three 18-hole championship golf courses provide unique and varied play, while a six-hole course introduces the novice. Seven dining venues and nine banquet venues deliver the most diverse culinary experience in and beyond Lehigh Valley.

The outstanding racquets and fitness programming, and 18th century Guest House, further enhance the exceptional member experience. Cool off during the summer months in the four swimming pools the entire family will enjoy. Founded in 1920 by 16 business leaders from Bethlehem Steel, the Club has evolved gracefully over the past 100 years and today encompasses 850 acres that serve as a timeless retreat from the everyday hustle and bustle where families enjoy new experiences and create memories.

The Old Course

The Old Course is a charming, elegantly simple layout designed by British architect Herbert Strong. Strong hailed from Royal St. George’s, a course noted for its natural beauty; thus, it is no surprise that his designs involved little or no disruption to the land. Among Strong’s best-known works are Canterbury Golf Club near Cleveland, OH; Engineers Club in Roslyn, NY; and the Ponte Vedra Club in Florida, home to one of golf’s first “island” greens. The course has undergone minor renovations by William Gordon and then by Perry Maxwell and most recently by Tom Marzolf of the Fazio Group.

Not overly difficult from the member’s tees (6,800), the course shows its strength from the championship markers (7,126). It traverses the gently rolling terrain that was once a working farm. The USGA has chosen the Old Course for seven of its national championships: the 1951 U.S. Amateur, the 1983 U.S. Junior Amateur, the 1987 U.S. Senior Amateur, three U.S. Senior Opens (1992, 2000, 2022), the 2009 U.S. Women’s Open and the 2014 U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship. Always in superb condition, the Old Course is the favorite of the membership.

Future USGA Championships at Saucon Valley Country Club

• 2026 U.S. Junior Amateur
• 2032 U.S. Senior Open
• 2038 U.S. Women's Amateur
• 2042 U.S. Senior Open
• 2051 U.S. Amateur

One of the many beautiful holes is the par four 13th. Fronting the old Georgian clubhouse, it is a relatively short hole that demands accuracy due to a series of six bunkers positioned down the left side of the fairway and four perfectly placed on the right. A drive to a narrow landing area leaves a short iron approach to a well-guarded, undulating green.

The Grace Course

Named for Eugene Gifford Grace, the man who founded the Club and for more than four decades exerted an outsized influence on making Saucon Valley Country Club what it is today, the Grace Course. Grace was an 1899 graduate of Lehigh University who went straight from campus to “the Steel,” as Bethlehem Steel Corporation is commonly known.

The Grace Course is one of only 44 golf courses in the country to have been named to Golf Digest’s prestigious “Top 100 Golf Courses” every year from the inception of the rankings in 1966 until the late 1990s. The Grace Course, long and demanding, is set among 150 acres that challenge the golfer to use every club in the bag. It is quite unlike the Old Course in both design and topography. The Grace Course surrounds the Old Course and does not return to the clubhouse at the ninth hole. It does stop at the quaint Villa Pazzetti, the Club’s beautiful “halfway” house. The course measures 7,051 yards from the championship tees and features greens nearly twice the size of those on the Old Course but without the severe contours.

William Gordon and his son, David, completed the first nine, or “third nine,” of the Grace Course in the fall of 1953. The back nine, or “fourth nine,” opened for play in 1958.

There are a number of quite unique holes on the Grace Course. The par three 5th hole is a classic example of an “Eden” hole and is modeled after the famous 11th hole at St. Andrews, Scotland.

The par three 11th hole is a marvelous rendition of a “Redan” hole that features a slightly uphill shot to a green that is set at an angle to the tee and slopes gently away from the golfer. The Grace Course finishes with three very strong par four holes, the shortest of which is the 437-yard 17th. These holes provide a fitting climax to a true test of one’s abilities.

The Weyhill Course

Weyhill is a stunning course that features marvelous views and dramatic changes in elevation. William and David Gordon again combined to create a design that utilizes the unique features of the land, including an abandoned quarry. The result is a course quite different from Old and Grace.

The property that was to become the golf course was originally a dairy farm known as “Saucona Farms,” owned by an executive of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation. It was later sold to Quincy Bent, a director and vice president of the steel company, who renamed the farm “Weyhill Farms” after his ancestral farming village in the County of Hampshire, England.

Two of the most spectacular are the holes that bridge a quarry located in the middle of the course. The 14th hole is a par three measuring 176 yards in length. The tee shot must carry the quarry to a green that slopes dramatically from right to left and back to front. The 15th is reminiscent of the second hole at Pine Valley, with its monstrous uphill approach shot to an elevated green well guarded by a series of bunkers set into the hillside. Weyhill measures 7,099 yards from the back tee markers.