Golf Courses Near Wheeling, WV

For a time in the late 19th century, Wheeling, West Virginia was the wealthiest city per capita in America. Wheeling’s notable golf offerings can be traced back to this wealth. A former glorious private estate became Wheeling Park in 1925, and the next year Wheeling Park Golf Course, known as Bloch Memorial Golf Course, debuted after its greens were roughed in by the firm that built the famed Oakmont Country Club in suburban Pittsburgh. Nowadays, the 9-hole par-34 Bloch executive course features holes as long as 365 yards. The 63-hole Oglebay Resort is also administered by the Wheeling Park Commission. The resort spreads out on an old hilltop farm that was deeded to the city with the stipulation that the land forever remain a public recreation. Oglebay’s original 18, the 1930-vintage Crispin Course, is the shortest and easiest of the resort’s three 18s, but it is still a popular tee time. Oglebay’s two championship courses are the Palmer Course, a player-friendly layout with elevated tee boxes that reveal gaping fairways and gorgeous mountain views; and the Jones Course, a scenic but very tough layout with a rousing parade of holes that put players in uneven and severe lies. The Jones Course is Oglebay’s crown jewel. A 9-hole Par-3 Course with pitch-and-putt-length holes (45 to 95 yards) rounds out the resort’s golf lineup.

Wheeling, which at one time produced so many cut iron nails it was called “The Nail Capital of the World,” is in the Appalachian foothills just off the Ohio River. The epicenter of dining, shopping and city events in Wheeling is the Centre Market in the downtown historic market district. Wheeling boasts impressive Victorian architecture and two historic theaters: the 1904 Victoria Theater, West Virginia’s oldest theater, which is a performing arts venue; and the landmark 1928-vintage Capitol Theatre, which still shows matinee movies. Two must-see Wheeling attractions are the Oglebay Institute Glass Museum, which exhibits the Sweeney Punch Bowl, the world’s largest piece of cut lead crystal; and the Bissonnette Gardens, the restored gardens at the home of Earl Oglebay whose estate became Oglebay Park and Resort. The Gardens are most colorful in April and May when daffodils, pansies, tulips, and hyacinths all bloom. Of course, if you’re going to see the gardens, you might as well make more tee times to play Oglebay’s golf courses.