BEDFORD, Pennsylvania — Ron Forse has had his share of highs over the last two decades, with 11 USGA national championships played on courses where he and his course architecture design team performed significant restorations or renovations.
But, the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, native with a long-standing affinity for Donald Ross layouts, showed little hesitation when ranking the Omni Bedford Springs Resort Old Course restoration work among his list of accomplishments.
“It is pretty much our defining project,” Forse says of the course that dates back to more than 100 years ago and has been worked on by Spencer Oldham, A.W. Tillinghast and Ross. “It’s an incredibly historic place. We were in awe of the history there, so we took it very seriously. It’s kind of our special place.”
Forse is not alone in his thinking.
In GolfPass’ annual Golfers’ Choice rankings, Bedford Springs Resort Old Course, located in Bedford, Pennsylvania, was named the nation’s second best course golfers can play in the United States. The Golfers’ Choice lists are generated by golfer reviews, determining the best golf public courses played by recreational golfers each year.
The golf course, nestled a few miles off the Pennsylvania Turnpike in a scenic Allegheny Mountain valley filled with world-class trout streams, also finished No. 1 in four 2025 subcategories: layout, course conditions, pace of play and staff friendliness — a first in the 11-year history of Golfers’ Choice awards.
One of the resort course’s numerous unique touches is a starter on the first hole who briefs players on the history of the course to “get them into a mindset,” says director of golf Jim Woods. “People are so in awe when they walk off that course. For golfers who play here it’s not about the price, it’s not about the course itself, it’s about creating the experience that when you walk off the 18th hole you want to do it again. It’s like playing Pebble Beach — you’re there for the aura of the place, the history of the place.”
The weekend rate from May 8 through Oct. 20 is $259 for walk ups and $219 for resort guests. That drops to $139 and $129 from April 1 to early May. A national membership costs $2,200 a year and the course logs just around 14,000 rounds a year, with pace of play a priority for the staff.
A little known fact is the top-ranked Mid-Atlantic resort is actually closer to Dulles International in Washington, D.C., than to Pittsburgh International Airport.
It’s hard to believe that just two decades ago this Rembrandt of a golf course was in a runaway floodplain and suffering from years of neglect. And the historic hotel, once the summer White House for U.S. President James Buchanan (1857-1860), had been closed since 1990.
“It would’ve been the perfect place to have a raunchy rock band do a music video,” Forse says. “It was so decrepit. There were still employee time-clock punch cards in the slots in the walls that had not been moved.”
And the golf course was in such disarray that irrigation pipes were exposed in fairways and concrete blocks were being used to try to shore up stream banks where flood waters were constantly eroding portions of the course.
“It was a mess, but there was all this ridiculous amount of potential,” says Forse, who recalls receiving the phone call from developers about potentially restoring the old Ross layout. “I was driving through Bloomfield, Connecticut — I remember exactly where I was because I had been looking at that course and drooling about it for years.”
Once on the property in 2006, Forse began to uncover many of the course’s historic Victorian-era features.
“It wasn’t just Donald Ross. It was basically a museum of the earliest three eras of golf course architecture in the United States,” Forse says.
One of the oldest courses in North America, each hole has a name. The renowned par 3 No. 4 Volcano hole demands a steep uphill shot to a narrow double-tier putting surface. “A par 3 here is like making birdie on a short par 4,” Hall of Fame golfer Gene Sarazen once said. And then there is No. 13, dubbed Tiny Tim, which is highlighted by a series of 2-feet-high, 10-feet-wide mounds.
The course was originally designed in 1895 by Oldham. The 6,000-yard, 18-hole course at the time featured his geometric style and included “chocolate drop” mounds, and serpentine and doughnut bunkers.
Assistant golf pro Zach Claycomb is part of the resort’s new history committee, which has begun researching even more into the vast history. And he recently came across an interesting side note on Oldham.
“From digging into info on Spencer Oldham, this might be the only course he’s ever designed,” Claycomb says.”He was predominantly a pro cricket player.”
The resort hotel has 216 rooms, with the nearly 2,000 square feet Donald Ross Suite opening up to a huge deck with long views of most of the golf course.
In addition to a spectacular golf experience, guests can also experience a dip in one of the nation’s first indoor pools, spa treatments that incorporate the resort’s “eternal springs,” hiking tours, fishing, archery and hatchet throwing.
Dinner at the 1796 Room is a must for beef and seafood lovers, with a menu that includes Wagyu center-cut filets, a 32-ounce Tomahawk ribeye and cold-water lobster tails.
It doesn’t take long to become immersed in the resort’s rich history as a unique gigantic silk flag dating to 1865 is displayed behind the check-in counter.
“It’s an authentic 39-star flag,” says employee Jocelyn Jacobs. “And the three stars on the left of the star field represent the Dakota, Nebraska and Colorado territories. So what’s special about this flag is it technically never existed … as there was never a point in U.S. history where we officially only had 39 states. By the time they finished sewing on those stars, Dakota had split into north and south, and more states were added at the very same time.”
The flag was gifted in 2007 in honor of the resort’s grand restoration. Women from the National Coverlet Museum in Bedford County spent 19 hours mending it back together so it could be displayed behind a custom built frame to prevent it from discoloring or aging any further. There is only one other flag like the resort’s and it hangs in the Smithsonian Institute.
The resort restoration cost $120 million and there are few other romantic getaways east of the Mississippi River that can rival its allure. Also, the hotel reopened under National Historic Landmark status.
“We’re surrounded by these hills that give us this nice little valley where you don’t hear a thing,” says director of sales and marketing Dan Swanson. “It would have been a huge shame had it not been restored. This place is just classic history. You step into it and it’s just amazing the feeling that you get from the property.”