My home course is Twin Lakes in Clifton, Virginia. I live in Arlington, VA, the smallest county in the US and home to zero public golf courses; Twin Lakes is about a 30-minute drive for me. My handicap hovers around a 12 -- though I'm trying to get my game to the point where I can shoot in the 70s occassionally.
I also play with some frequency at Shenandoah Valley Golf Club in Front Royal, VA -- a great value and classic mountain track with 27 holes (even on a weekend it's only $50, replay rates are about $12 for the cart, free if walking or after 2PM; midweek it's under $30 I think). A couple of times per year I will play one of the upscale daily-fee tracks around the DC area such as Raspberry Falls, Whiskey Creek, Blue Mash, and Stonewall. I'm always up for a new challenge or new golf friends if anyone's ever interested.
Twin Lakes is a 36-hole muni in Fairfax County, VA. The newer layout, the Oaks (1998, architect Denis Griffiths) is (IMHO) one of the most underrated tracks in the DC area. The older layout, the Lakes (1967) is a fun change of pace occasionaly for the better golfer and perfect for the higher handicapper. The Lakes is more open with fewer hazards that come into play -- only three holes have trouble on both sides of the fairway -- and is less visually interesting.
My only complaint about the Oaks is its conditioning -- last year the fairways got quite chewed up in spots as the season ran on but this spring they didn't recover -- on several fairways it is near impossible to get a fair lie (you pretty much have to play these holes as ground under repair). I have been told the fairways will be ripped up in the fall and replaced with Zoysia grass, and that the course will be cart-path only for a couple of years after that. The course is hilly but walkable -- but the cart path only policy should slow down play to a certain extent.
The reason I like the course so much is that, for the price ($45 to walk on a weekend), it offers the best combination of balanced holes, challenging but fair (especially for the mid handicapper like myself), decent pace of play (the Lakes tends to get a lower quality of golfer and therefore play slower), walkable, and attractive (no surrounding homes) that's within 30-40 minuts of where I live. The design is straight forward, with the occasional blind shot and bit of deception; the fairways are wide but trouble happens if you miss them by much (the Oaks is a fair title -- there are many heavily treed areas with thick underbrush). Greens have some slope, but putts that don't have an obvious big swing due tend to break less than you will read; these subtle breaks can make it tough for the first timer to score well. The course is not the toughest for a low handicapper, but quite difficult for the mid or high handicapper. The white tees ratings are 70.7/135 for 6316 yards (from the tips it plays 6700 yards witrh ratings of 72.5/137).
[note: all yardages provided are from the white tees]
I think the biggest reason I have made this my home course is that I like the balance in holes: about an equal number of dogleg left vs. right; a good mix of long and short holes (par 3s range from 130 to 217 yds, par 4s from 300 to 435 yds). And the par fours are especially strong: 5 of them are between 300-350 yds, but they each feel different and test different types of shots. Several of them appear to be much easier than they play (at least for me). Yet two of the par fours are around 430 yds from the white tees, #2 has a 190 yard carry over a pond from the tee, then the second shot plays all uphill to a well guarded green on the front-left and a bailout area to the right. The middle of the back nine includes a brutal stretch of four holes, the easiest of which is another 430 yd par four.
One other interesting quirk: most of the tree-lined areas are red staked. I believe this is to speed up play; I wonder what GCAers think of this policy.