A plywood laminate having dimensional stability and resistance to warping and delamination is formed from a plurality of higher quality plies and a plurality of lower quality plies. The higher quality plies may be of hardwood and the lower quality plies may be of softwood or lower quality hardwoods, or the higher quality plies may have a veneer grade of better than ANSI/HPVA HP-1-2000 veneer grade C and the lower quality plies may have a veneer grade of no greater than ANSI/HPVA HP-1-2000 veneer grade C. The exposed plies are of the higher quality. In most embodiments, at least two adjacent interior plies are of the lower quality. In those embodiments having a tongue and groove or click-lock edge configuration, the tongue comprises portions of at least two plies and at least one of the plies is a higher quality ply.