-Being a Carolinian in the Charlotte area. I thoroughly enjoyed the change of scenery at Monroeville and the different style of golf that Pennsylvania has to offer. I'm typically playing accuracy woods golf with some elevation, but Monroeville has a little more elevation than most of the courses in Charlotte, NC and a better mix of open and wooded. The course consists of many mature Eastern White Oaks that are fairly scattered throughout the course.

-Starts off with a bang on the first two holes. The first hole is very gorgeous down a large and grassy sloping hill tucked into a small orchard of oak trees. #2 is a more technical hole. I played the white tee on this hole, so it's a relatively short par four by most standards. The fairway calls for a short but seemingly quick right turn. The approach is a little bit tougher being uphill with more oaks in the center of the fairway calling for a right to left hook. Placement is crucial here.

-Elevation is used very well here. It has just a little bit less than Oak Hollow, but several changes over 30' and a couple over 40'. #5 is a great example of how the elevation and terrain really factor in the level of challenge. It's gradually uphill, more than #2 but the approach is relatively similar. You don't want to go right once you reach the top of the hill. The basket is maybe 120-150' to the right side from the tee but once you reach the landing zone, you want to stay on the left edge on the upshot. #18 is an excellent finish along a flat surface that drops off left down a large hill to the pin halfway down the hill. The hole is mostly open, but there is OB in the woods on the left. You'd have a better chance for an easier approach with a longer drive, but the OB on the left can be discouraging. Very well designed and very interesting finish.

-The mix of open and wooded is an excellent blend. The front nine has a couple of open holes and a few fully wooded holes and several that are kind of in between. The back nine starts off wide open and takes you into a wooded section after #12. #11 is the longest and most open hole on the course. It's 770' from the white tee with the OB ball field in play after about 300'. Fun hole to just bomb a few drives and a fun attempt to bomb some anhyzers and try to clear the fence fading right. #16 is a polar opposite. It's definitely the tightest hole. It's very straight and fair, and about what I'm used to seeing being from North Carolina. Fairway is probably just under 20' wide and all of the trees edging the fairway are huge with potential for far kicks off the fairway. Hole is about 270', so it's very reachable, but a 270' accurate shot straight down a narrow fairway is much tougher to do.

-With the excellent mix of open and wooded, whether it's wide open with no trees (#10) or very narrow (#16) or filled with trees, the foliage is everything in between on the other sixteen holes. The atmosphere playing around those white oak trees. The prettiest hole in my opinion is #7. It's a brilliantly designed par three along a gentle rolling hill with a fair amount of rough on the right side. The grass was especially pretty with it being summer when I played.

-Love the mix of hole distances. Few ace runs under 300'. Love the minor challenges that they incorporate. #3 being a straight 230' ace run on a crest. I was in kind of a rush when I played here, so I grip locked a slightly overstable putter and went off the fairway on the right. It's a nice testy straight shot. I love how they made an island green on the downhill 15th hole in the short pin. Island is large and very fair and accommodating to beginners. This is a super fun ace run. The basket was in the B pin when I played, so it was a 225' steep downhill putter shot with no island green. Makes for a slightly longer hole, but maybe less of a separator.

You see short holes like #3 and #15 and enjoy the better opportunities for birdie, and then you see some challenging par fours. I previously mentioned the uphill drives and the testy upshots on the side of the hills on #2 and #5. All of the par fours here are excellent. #9 is another pretty hole on a different slanting hill to a guarded green tucked in the woods going slightly uphill. #12 is a fun downhill bomb over a valley with the pin out in the wide open to the right side. The fairway has some trees lined up on the left and some heavy and dense woods to the right side. The line of trees ends after about 400-425' so it is possible to make it out into the wide open field. #14 is deceptively tough. There is a mando pointing right maybe halfway to the basket. The left side is much more open and the pin is tucked into the open on the left further ahead but the designated fairway is to the right toward two tighter gaps straight ahead. You can't avoid the risk on this one. You have to play close to the rough on the right side while trying to miss it. #18 is, like I said an excellent finish playing the steep hill on the approach with some OB left of the fairway

-The tee signs are nice and accurate with hole info and hole diagrams. I'm not sure if they will be replaced at some point, but they do consist of some hole tips and advice on the bottom.

-The blue pads are not fully established. Some of them are visible and available for play, but others are not put into place like it says on the tee signs. I never could find #1's blue pad so I thought they abandoned the idea of blues at first. A local told me that some of them were just not yet installed. While we are at it, there are no concrete pads. All the pads are natural tees and they get muddy.

-Some of the pins or pad locations are approximately in the fairway of a different hole. #6's long pin pretty much intersects with #8's white tee. With #6 being a blind uphill shot, it's tough to tell exactly where you will land if you hit the line properly, or how much you may turn left at the end. #6's short pin is dangerously close to #7's blue pad. #3 and #9's fairways red pads interfere with each other and I think the red pad for #9 should be further to the right. #13's long pin is practically on the edge of the fairway for #14. Some holes are too close together and I feel that they made it a little too much of a priority to establish two pins and three sets of pads. Extra pins and pads are nice and fun to see the change in shot requirement on a hole, but it doesn't always have to be that way. Just a thought of mine. These

-If you are visiting from a different state, good luck finding a way back without driving through toll booths. There are a ton of toll roads in PA.

-#10 is a wide-open par three under 300' elevated on a short concrete pillar. It's a filler hole that doesn't measure up to the rest of the course. Nice chance for a birdie I reckon.

-Monroeville was a delight to play. Has a tremendous variety of shots whether it's distance, accuracy, elevation, or level or challenge. All the fairways are well defined and fair. Some of the greens are a little bit treacherous due to the susceptibility to rollaways, but none have great potential to penalize you too much. Somewhat challenging and very fair for all levels with a touch of unpredictability that can make you rethink your strategies for the following holes.

-Mach pins aren't my favorite, but they caught fine enough and I think they will be good for the next several years. They are really only a problem upon aging.

-I really enjoyed playing from the whites. They were a nice cool down after playing Orange Crush in the Seth Burton Memorial and then playing Oak Hollow. They aren't too easy or too hard. There are several difficult holes from the whites and several redeeming holes. The variety in challenge isn't too wide. I didn't think any of the holes were too hard, but some are a little tougher to reach than others. I found the last three to be a little more challenging than the average hole here.

-I love Monroeville and I loved Oak Hollow as well! Pennsylvania golf is an excellent change of venue that had me delighted to drive up. I didn't even mind driving through the toll booths on the way back to my hotel in WV.

This course has a long history and I played the old 9 hole version many times, including in the Pittsburgh 90 back in the day. I was excited to hear that they had converted it to 18 holes. I have now played it a few times and I think this course can grow into something. We definitely need more courses on the east side of town.

The front 9 makes use of a good deal of the old beginning holes, fleshed out by using all the available space that had been down off the hillsides to your right. There are a lot of well designed holes on this course now. It's turning into something fun to play. You start off on that 1st hole shoots down the old 2nd hole valley to a basket guarded by trees. The 2nd hole needs some grooming still, but is a good long anny run uphill. The 9th hole is a long par 4 that runs you back up to the parking lot.

The back 9 then starts winding around the fields and up to the old finishing holes. 13th Hole is a good one, with an elevated drive down across a valley to an open field. Depending on pin position, it's a challenging shot. The 18th Hole is a gem. It's a big drive to a lefthand drop downhill. You have to nail your upshot to have a chance at stayin in the circle.

The course is still pretty raw. There are no tees yet and the dirt spots that they are using currently get muddy on the wrong days and some just aren't level or long enough. There are no real signs yet. They have something akin to sponsor signs but most of the distances are inaccurate. Most of that front 9 was torn up to landscape it, so it's dirt and rocks right now in many places. It will need to grow in over time.

I think my biggest knock on it would be the layout. The front switches back on itself so many times I have played the wrong hole before. There is no real signage to help and it's not intuitive. The back 9 seems to have run out of room. The holes start getting shorter and stacked on one another. It won't work well in a tournament I would think.

The course has a restroom available. There is a lot of parking close by to the first tee. It's right off the freeway, so this is easy to get to from town.

Give this course a decade and it will be a great intermediate style course. It just needs grooming time.