Groat's Champion Lakes golf course still going strong at 50 years

On Christmas Eve 1964, Dick Groat and Jerry Lynch watched as a construction crew broke ground on their dream: a country club-quality golf course on which any golfer could afford to play.

For more than two months before that, the pair — professional baseball players by day — walked the wooded Fairfield property that would become Champion Lakes Golf Club.

“We made sure the course was laid out how we wanted,” said Groat, 85. He joked that “only a couple of dumb baseball players” would build a golf course in Latrobe native Arnold Palmer's backyard.

Fifty years later, Champion Lakes is still going strong with Groat at the helm, earning him a Legacy Award by the Greater Latrobe-Laurel Valley Regional Chamber of Commerce. He will be honored at the chamber's annual dinner Oct. 24.

“He has been a very impactful person here in Westmoreland County,” said Mike Dudurich, a spokesman for the chamber. “(Champion Lakes) has become part of the community in the Ligonier Valley.”

The chamber chose to honor Groat this year not only for the golf course's 50th anniversary, but also for his “world class” athleticism across multiple sports, Dudurich said.

Groat was signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates as a free agent days after graduating from Duke University in 1952. After baseball season ended, Groat was drafted to play professional basketball for the Fort Wayne Pistons as the third overall pick that year.

Groat played shortstop for the Pirates until 1962, then spent the next three seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals.

Although his “greatest thrill” was winning a World Series with his hometown team in 1960, Groat said the Cardinals treated him so well, “I don't drink a beer unless it's an Anheuser-Busch product.”

The Legacy Award was a surprise, Groat said, and he's in awe of winning.

“To be in the company of (past recipients) Mister Rogers and Arnold Palmer is pretty awesome,” he said.

Owning a golf course has been rewarding, but not easy. Groat said he's met many of his closest friends at the course, but attracting enough golfers to pay the bills is a challenge, in part because it's an expensive sport to start playing.

“We haven't had a Palmer-type personality to bring people into golf,” Groat said of the late golfing legend. “Arnold was just a magnet” to the sport.

Groat credits the course's location for its longevity.

“We think it's the best public golf course in Western Pennsylvania,” he said. Nothing beats walking the front nine holes looking at Chestnut Ridge and returning on the back nine staring into the Laurel Mountains, he said.

Groat hasn't played a round in about 18 months because of a neck injury and some trouble with balance, but he handles the course's paperwork and closes up each night. He lives in an efficiency apartment in the same building as the pro shop, so his commute home is short.

He said he has no plans to retire.

“I think you get old very quickly that way. You have to have something on your mind,” he said. “I feel extremely lucky in my life to live every dream I've had.”

Kari Andren is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach her at 724-850-2856 or kandren@tribweb.com.