The contemplation of parallel universes is usually best left to cosmologists, but a similar phenomenon exists in resorts, a point driven home by a recent visit to Nemacolin Woodlands Resort and Spa. Situated in rural Farmington, Pennsylvania, about 75 miles southeast of Pittsburgh and just above the West Virginia border, it is indeed a universe unto itself, with a critical mass to confer iconic status as the area’s single most recognizable enterprise.
More important to all us non-cosmologists, though, Nemacolin and its cousins around the country have great golf. And more important to non-golfers, resorts like Nemacolin – “destination” pproperties, in trade jargon, since they provide everything guests could want – offer boundless recreational possibilities.
Pinehurst, with its eight tracks, might lead the way among multi-course golf resorts, but Nemacolin’s golf package is intriguing for different reasons. For the “resort” golfer – code for less accomplished, higher handicap, less frequent player – there is The Links. At 6,643 yards, par 70 from the back tees, it is an enjoyable test, plenty challenging at slope 131. Designed by Willard Rockwell, a pivotal figure in the development of the property, it opened in 1987.
Descriptives typically attached to The Links, which is open to the public and offers memberships for locals, are “fun,” “scenic,” “playable.” It is also customarily in lush condition, winding its way through the forests and streams of the Laurel Highlands. Thus, while ample challenge itself, The Links is also the preferred method of easing your way into the Mystic Rock golf experience.
Constructed over a three-year timetable, Mystic Rock opened in 1995, during Pete Dye’s sadist-to-our-masochist phase. Site of the 84 Lumber Classic for the past four years, it is a par 72, 7,511 yards from the back tees, with a whopping course rating of 78.3 and a slope of 151. Naturally the course can be made somewhat more manageable by playing from a shorter set of tees, but that will not eliminate confrontations with other standard Dye design elements: sprawling waste bunkers, giant boulders, pot bunkers, gaping water hazards, stone walls.
In the likely event that Mystic Rock forces you to acknowledge...
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