“In Pittsburgh, the First Tee is headquartered (in the R3A-designed Arnold Palmer Learning Center) at the only golf course within city limits: the Bob O’Connor Golf Course at Schenley Park.”
First Published: June 13, 2025 at www.post-gazette.com
At no other U.S. Open venue, with the possible exception of the iconic Pebble Beach on the Monterey Peninsula, does the golf course itself take center stage like Oakmont Country Club. The exclusive preserve in Plum Borough is one of the sternest tests of the game anywhere in the world — but golf in Pittsburgh is so much more than one celebrated course.
The Pittsburgh region should be grateful to the club and its membership for hosting this international spectacle, which is bringing tens of thousands of people and tens of millions of dollars to southwestern Pennsylvania, not to mention advertising the region to the world. Indeed, Pittsburgh is one of the great golf cities in America, with other clubs such as the Fox Chapel Golf Club, the Pittsburgh Field Club, the Longue Vue Club and the Allegheny County Club holding national tournaments over the years.
But it would be a mistake to see golf in southwestern Pennsylvania as merely an elite preoccupation. While the international media fawns over Oakmont, what makes Pittsburgh truly one of America’s great golf cities aren’t so much its exclusive clubs as its wealth of public and municipal courses. Few cities have as many options for everyday people to come to learn and to enjoy the game.
The average Pittsburgh golfer isn’t teeing off at Oakmont, but at South Park or North Park or at any one of the dozens of affordable courses from the Mon Valley to Beaver County and beyond. These facilities, especially those owned and run by county and municipal governments, over the decades have allowed golf in Pittsburgh to become a popular pastime.
The best example of this, though, is the First Tee. This is a national nonprofit program founded by the PGA Tour to make the game of golf, and the lessons it teaches in discipline, patience and sportsmanship, available to young people of any means. The First Tee offers free or low cost lessons, along with mentorship and an emphasis on character formation, for children from age five to 18. According to the organization, it has served over 3 million young people around the country, about half of whom have been racial or ethnic minorities.
In Pittsburgh, the First Tee is headquartered at the only golf course within city limits: the Bob O’Connor Golf Course at Schenley Park. While no one would mistake the newly reconfigured nine-hole layout for a U.S. Open venue, it offers accessible play — both as a matter of cost and as a matter of location — for city residents, and in particular for First Tee participants. It also offers an indoor golf simulator for yea-round play.
Beyond city limits, the First Tee has another year-round location at Pleasant Ridge facility in Kennedy Township, as well as seasonal offerings at South and North Park, Black Hawk Golf Course in Beaver County, All About Golf and Mars-Bethel Golf Course in Butler County, and Victory Hills Golf Course in far southern Allegheny County.
As the tournament continues at Oakmont, where the best players in the world will be forced to put all their skills and wisdom to use, Pittsburgh can be thankful that the enjoyment, the lessons and the frustrations of the game of golf are available to so many in this region.