From the Blue Ridge Mountains east to the coastline, the state of Virginia is both geographically diverse and beautiful. Why it doesn’t host better golf is a mystery to me. Admittedly, it’s in a brutal transition area for growing grasses conducive to good golf. High humidity and warm nights are no friend to the Green Keeper. Still, are a couple of great mountain courses sand capped with bent grass, a couple of great coastal courses with bermuda, and a couple in between perhaps along the bank of the mighty James River asking too much? Apparently!
Tepid works by Tillinghast, Ross, and Banks exist and sadly Flynn’s once heralded Cascades design continues to be neutered as creeks are piped underground, bunkers made shallow, etc. On the modern side, Doak’s Riverfront had great appeal when it opened but I assume that now houses have snuffed out much of its enjoyment, which is certainly what happened at Fazio’s The Virginian. No one will confuse Kingsmill with Dye’s best designs. Strantz’s two unique designs 35 minutes east of Richmond opened to great acclaim before becoming unfashionable.
I type all this after residing in Virginia from 1968 through 1993. It is not the most favorable state in the country for the study of golf course architecture. However, as always seems to happen, once I left things got better!
Over the past decade or two new venues have added needed spice to the state’s menu. These include Kinloch, Ballyhack with its wide fairways and deep hazards, and the stylish Olde Farm set in a post card perfect bucolic setting.
Through this ebb and flow with Golden Age courses being mismanaged and new ones coming on board in the Old Dominion, one club stands out. It made sensible decisions decade after decade and was vigilant in preserving its gem of a design so that the course is as good as its ever been. That distinction goes to Farmington Country Club in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Rankings are personal with no right and wrong answer, so setting a stake in the ground and declaring that one is BEST IN STATE is pointless. That’s a discussion with no end. All I’ll say is that there might be one or two in the state that are as fun to play but none is clearly better. Unlike the Cascades, this Golden Age course by Fred Findlay has stayed true to its roots. Yes, the course has been stretched several hundred yards since it opened in 1928 but at just over 6,700 yards, its challenges transcend length. The sloping fairways and canted greens remain at the core of the matter. Farmington’s majestic setting in the foothills of the Blue Ridge and the unique ways in which Findlay draped playing surfaces over the rolling topography yield a course with a host of memorable holes. Of the ~18,000 holes I’ve seen, none remind me of the 3rd, 7th, 8th or 16th holes found here.
For all those that read Richard Findlay’s Feature Interview in July this year, you know of the extensive reach of the Findlay golfing tree. For Fred, Farmington is his undoubted masterpiece. This is a special place and Fred’s love of golf, golf course architecture, landscaping and painting makes me think that he must have been a Renaissance man. In any event he was definitely artistic and that’s a good thing when you are working under the long shadow of Thomas Jefferson whose influence dominates the region.
Surely, the geographic formations in and around the Blue Ridge mountains made Fred feel at home relative to his Scottish roots near the tallest mountains in the UK. Findlay poured everything he had into Farmington – and he did so over several decades. The club continues to this day getting the details right. Yes, I wish a few more trees were felled to open up even more vistas and I wish the power line behind the 13th and 18th greens would be buried. Those events will come with time, I’m confident. In the meanwhile, steady progress is always afoot. For instance, the seventeenth tee was under construction when I visited. Instead of free flowing, Green Keeper Scott Kinnan and his crew were squaring the tee boxes in keeping with how Findlay had them.
Virginia is named after Queen Elizabeth I of England, also referred to as the Virgin Queen. The state is nearly virgin (not a great pairing of words, I admit!
) to great golf with Farmington being a proud exception – have a look at its profile and see if you agree.
Cheers,