Featured Golf Trip: Omni Bedford Springs

We’re heading three hours west of Aronimink this week to the ​Omni Bedford Springs​, anchored by the ​Old Course​, an appropriately named establishment touched by both Donald Ross and AW Tillinghast.

It was originally designed by Spencer Oldham in 1895 and stood as one of America’s first courses to top 6,000 yards—until a young Tillinghast came around in 1912 and turned it into nine holes. Ross (five years before building Aronimink, which he once called his “masterpiece”) utilized many of the existing holes as he switched it back to a full 18 in 1923.

What stands today is a mish-mash of those three early contributors, brought together in 2007 by architect Ron Forse, who ​told Golf Club Atlas​ that everything was “reconsidered and rebuilt with a foothold in the history of the three golf architects” that came before.

“Bedford Springs is a museum of the first 30 years of American golf architecture,” he says.

The experience Omni has built around that historic course is one of simplicity and slow pace, a getaway in the Allegheny mountains with the scenery to slow your heart rate. There are a handful of on-site options for food and drink, and there are rocking chairs lining the front porch, and there are fire pits crackling at night. The spa plays on the natural mineral springs that popularized the area.

And the golf sort of fits the mood: 130-odd years since Oldham’s routing was considered a monster for the time period, today’s version tips out well under 7,000 yards, meandering through the elevation and along a natural limestone stream called Shobers Run. Golfweek ​considers it​ the best public course in Pennsylvania.

Not every golf trip has to feel like a conquest. This one’s built to be a deep breath.