Sewickley Heights Golf Club

Overview: Sewickley Heights Golf Club is a private 18-hole parkland course at 126 Backbone Road in Sewickley, north of Pittsburgh. Jim Harrison's routing moves across rolling ground framed by mature woodland, with strategic bunkering and Poa annua greens shaping the playing experience. The published championship figure is a par 72 at 6,912 yards. The property has the spacious, quiet character of a traditional Pennsylvania club, yet the changes in elevation and the long closing stretch ask for careful club selection throughout the round.

History: Five local golfers founded Sewickley Heights Golf Club in 1961. The club's official history says that Jim Harrison transformed land that had once been considered for an airport into an 18-hole golf course. That origin story matters to the design: the course is not a resort development inserted into a finished landscape, but a long-established routing that made productive use of a large piece of Sewickley Heights ground while retaining its wooded setting.

Did You Know? The 17th hole stretches beyond 600 yards, giving Sewickley Heights an unusually substantial late-round par five. CBS Pittsburgh has highlighted the 15th through 18th holes as a difficult closing stretch, and the club's own golf material emphasizes how the final holes demand both patience and accurate positioning. It is a fitting finish for a course whose scale is easy to underestimate from the clubhouse area.