PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA | As defining characteristics of a golf course go, Pittsburgh Field Club’s is pretty hard to forget. To transport yourself from the 17th green to the 18th tee, those without electric carts take a 39-second ride that lifts golfers and their clubs 70 feet. The elevator, which simply has two buttons for “floor” 17 or 18, leads golfers out onto a 265-foot-long bridge and, once crossed, to the par-3 18th hole.
The massive green structure has a quirky, elaborate history, and so does the course where it resides.
Less famous than neighbors Oakmont and Fox Chapel, the course known by locals as Field Club sits perched on top of a hill overlooking the lush green property below. The entrance to reach that gorgeous vista is nothing more than a steeply uphill gate-less road with one diminutive gold sign with black lettering, about the size of a framed diploma in someone’s office.
It’s the oldest private club in Western Pennsylvania and one of the 100 oldest golf clubs in the U.S. according to the USGA. There is no “golf” in its name for a reason. It started out in 1882 as Pittsburgh Cricket Club in what is now the Homewood-Brushton neighborhood, closer to downtown. Cricket, archery, tennis and badminton were the main sports of choice at the time with golf only getting three rudimentary holes designed by Alexander Findlay, a Scottish immigrant who is largely credited as the “Father of American Golf” for his prolific and pioneering course-building talents.
As golf increased in popularity, the demand for a better course grew. The owner of the land, industrialist Henry Clay Frick, terminated the lease in 1914 which prompted Field Club to move to its 171-acre property where it is now located. Findlay had the new course, now 18 holes, ready by the following year – and yes, the club has never ceased to offer cricket, golf, swimming, tennis, paddle tennis, skeet shooting, fishing and bowling since its inception.
The golf course at that time had some, let’s say, unique ideas. The 12th hole was a 600-yard par-6 with an island green. The next hole, nicknamed Gibraltar, was a 165-yard par-3 with a green hanging off of a sharp cliff.
Thankfully, it has mellowed out over time while being touched by just about every course designer you can name. It’s unclear whether Donald Ross ever stepped onto property, but he did offer input from afar. A.W. Tillinghast, Willie Park Jr., Robert Trent Jones, Arthur Hills and Keith Foster have all had a hand in the current layout.
It’s handsome and it’s simple. The type of place that, if you were retired, you would dream of playing every summer morning before retreating to the clubhouse porch that overlooks golfers, small as ants, far below.
What remains today is one of the true “home” clubs you will ever see. The first hole is a confidence-building, downhill, Riviera-esque par-4 with Fox Chapel Presbyterian Church displaying its pointy white peak in the distance. It’s a hard course on which to lose a golf ball. There is only one water hazard, which fronts the beautiful par-3 16th, and there are very few residential properties near the course, so out of bounds is rarely an issue. There are groups of trees that frame certain holes, but you wouldn’t call it tree-lined. All of the par-5s can be reached in two and the par-4 second hole is drivable in favorable conditions. The sound of golf balls being hit echoes across the land like shots fired on a colonial battlefield.
It’s handsome and it’s simple. The type of place that, if you were retired, you would dream of playing every summer morning before retreating to the clubhouse porch that overlooks golfers, small as ants, far below.
Field Club doesn’t get much press, but it’s had its admirers over the years. It hosted the 1937 PGA Championship won by Denny Shute over Harold “Jug” McSpaden – let’s pause to appreciate how great of a golf name Jug McSpaden is – and held one of the qualifying rounds for the 1953 U.S. Open held at Oakmont. Ben Hogan won that U.S. Open, but he came away more impressed by Field Club than its famous neighbor.
“They played the Open at the wrong course,” Hogan said.
Click on grid to view photos larger.
A few years later in 1959, Field Club hosted the Western Open, which carried a lot of cachet at the time. Arnold Palmer missed a 3-foot par putt on the final hole to lose by one stroke to Mike Souchak. A 19-year-old Jack Nicklaus was the low amateur.
It’s been a more modest set of tournaments since then given that the course can only stretch out to about 6,800 yards, but Field Club was a stroke-play co-host for the 2003 U.S. Amateur held at Oakmont – that duty went to Longue Vue Club earlier this month when the U.S. Am returned.
Field Club is memorable for all of these historic and aesthetically pleasing reasons, but no description of the golf course is complete without what could be the oddest landmark most have ever seen on a golf course. There are other elevators on golf courses. For instance, Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles takes players from the ninth green to 10th tee by taking an elevator underneath a tunnel that leads upstairs to the clubhouse. You then exit the clubhouse to get to the 10th tee.
The outdoor elevator at Field Club is something entirely different.
With the golf course starting on top of a hill and never going back uphill throughout the routing, there had to be a way to get back to the clubhouse. The 18th hole was originally a 330-yard par-4 going directly up the hill, but the walk was so strenuous that members were suffering heart attacks on hot summer days.
A solution came in 1938. The elevator was the first of its kind to be built on a golf course, and there were no more heart attacks. Although, yes, someone has been stuck in the normally reliable elevator. In the 2004 Pennsylvania Open, three players and two caddies – the third caddie decided to walk up the hill on his own – got stuck when a nearby generator went out of commission. About an hour later, the group of five was lowered to the ground and treated by medical staff that had rushed over, but nobody had suffered anything worse than claustrophobia.
The par-4 that once stood is no longer there. It’s now a well-bunkered but otherwise anti-climactic 215-yard par-3. Back in the 80’s, there were thoughts of restoring the hole back to a par-4, and Hills was brought in to figure out how to make it work.
He liked the idea a lot. And then he walked up the hill. His hair full of sweat and his lungs searching for air, he didn’t like the idea anymore.
That is a part of Field Club’s charm. It will never be revered like its famous neighbors, but it’s quirky and enjoyable in all the best ways.