Golf in Oil City

Sling a quiver of nine-iron bows and dimpled, spherical arrows over your shoulder and hit the 18-hole New Castle Country Club Course for a game of golf (a $100 value). Designed by famed course designer A. W. Tillinghast and built in 1923, the 6,600-yard course, easily traversed by your included golf cart ($25), offers ample opportunity for both exhilarating eagles and disappointing duffs. Walter-Hagens-in-training will refuel with a boxed lunch of ham or turkey croissants with snacks and drink ($10), and rue that shank on the 14th hole at the locker room, driving range, or bag service area ($15 value for use of all three). If you care to sip on some alcoholic refreshment, those alongside other menu items are available for separate purchase. Put on your favorite tam o'shanter and hit the links at New Castle Country Club for a round of the thinking man's polo.

At theNorth Hills Junior Golf Academy, we emphasize safety, fun, excellence and personal attention. Our professional golf instructors, college coaches and staff are carefully picked for their love of teaching junior golf, their oustanding teaching abilities and their inspirational approach in having fun and learning golf.

The U.S. Women's Open is one of the United States Golf Association's premier majors and a chance to see the world's best female golfers display their driving, chipping, and golf-ball levitation skills, which have eliminated the need for tees. Spend one of four days analyzing the rhythmic, controlled shots from expected competitors such as Michelle Wie and the steady putting skills of Ai Miyazato—both trying to best last year's champion, Eun-Hee Ji. Up to nine golf-following youths age 17 and under will be admitted free of charge with every ticketed adult, and the first two rows of the grandstands are reserved for children to soak in the action with a first-hand view.

Named for the sunny yellow birdsfoot trefoil flowers strewn throughout the course—sprouted from seeds that fell off hay wagons rumbling through years ago on the fields of the former Buffalo Creek Farms—the championship golf course at Birdsfoot Golf Club enchants golfers with rolling hills and country charm. The links-style front nine give way to a back nine whose fairways open over hills, inviting golfers to pull out their drivers and whack dimpled orbs with the club-swinging gusto usually reserved for cracking eggs into an omelet pan. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette highlights the course’s 465-yard third hole as one of the 18 best public holes in western Pennsylvania, citing its mounded fairway, which doglegs left and challenges putts with a downhill, sloped green. As carts zoom from one hole to the next, they traverse a path where bogeyman faces carved by a local artist peer from tree trunks. When players finish their rounds, they can unwind in a clubhouse where ghosts from its former life as a farmhouse offer advice on covertly changing scorecard results.

Course at a Glance:

• 18-hole, par 72 course

• Length of 7,034 yards

• Course rating of 74.4

• Slope rating of 137

• See an interactive course tour

Stop N Sock's owners have transformed their corner of New Brighton into a family-friendly labyrinth of golf-inspired games. Their expansive outdoor facility—with 43 acres of rolling greens—allows adults and kids to putt and ricochet balls around the 18-hole golf course lined with trees, shrubs, and spouting fountains, or toss tiny saucers into metal baskets at disc golf. With short links and wide fairways, their pitch-and-putt course lets kids develop interest in golf, and challenges experienced club swingers to hone their short game. Stop N Sock's driving range, however, gives everyone the opportunity to work on their long game, with 27 stations equipped with grass practice areas and automatic ball dispensers. To mix it up, the golf-centric center's batting cages lets individuals solidify their stance, perfect their focus, and keep the rust and barnacles off their swing.

Formerly known as Ambridge Country Club, Harmony Ridge Golf Club reopened in 2008 under the guidance of PGA professional John Mazza and local business owners Ed Rae and Greg Paul. The nine-hole course is commonly referred to as Oakmont's Little Brother, as it shares Oakmont Country Club's designers, H.C. Fownes and Emil Loeffler, and has a propensity to withstand noogies. It beckons swingers of all levels with 120 verdant acres that stretch across Beaver County countryside. A newly renovated blues cafe and sports bar, which proffers a menu of American fare along with weekly live music, rounds out an afternoon of long drives and short putts.