Boy, we have some great golf courses in Central Virginia. One of my favorites is Stoney Creek, a Wintergreen layout in Nellysford. My regular golf buddies and I played there last week. We used our VSGA cards and played 18 holes for just $26, and with a cart. Stoney Creek offers three 9-hole layouts, Tuckahoe, Monocan and Shamokin. We happened to play my favorite two – Tuckahoe and Monocan, both … [Read more...]
A Trip to The Royal Virginian
When you’re too poor or too cheap to belong to a country club or to have an annual membership to a golf course, you play around a lot. Such is the case with my regular golf amigos. We play around and have lots of great choices in central Virginia. Last week, we added another venue to our tour – the Royal Virginian at Hadensville in Louisa County. It’s about 35 miles from Charlottesville as the … [Read more...]
Tanyard Country Club
Summer has arrived, the birds are nesting and the splendor of Central Virginia is on full display. That means it’s Tanyard time. It’s time to tee it up at the lovely and affordable golf course at Tanyard Country Club in Louisa. For this golfer, Tanyard is a favored destination. Though thirty miles is not much in the way of a destination, Tanyard is worth every mile of the short drive from … [Read more...]
Getting Off the First Tee
There is nothing in golf to match the feeling of stepping up to the first tee and connecting solidly with your driver, sending the ball screaming down the fairway. This is a somewhat rare occurrence for the ordinary golfer. “Duffers” will hit a good one every now and then – just enough to keep from giving up the game completely – but more often than not, it’s a slice, a hook or something even … [Read more...]
Mastering The Flop Shot
On occasion I’ll hit a decent drive on a short par 4, followed by an iron that is just right in distance, but a little left of the green. Like many average golfers, I tend to pull short irons. The problem I now find myself in is being within sniffing distance of the pin, but looking into the bowels of the nastiest sand trap this side of the Sahara. Even worse, the green is sloping away and I only … [Read more...]
Waynesboro Country Club
Think of the great golf courses in Virginia and the cities of Virginia Beach, Richmond, Williamsburg and Hot Springs come to mind. Add another to that list – Waynesboro, the home of the stunning Waynesboro Country Club. A Fred Findlay/Pete Lang layout, Waynesboro Country Club ranks up there with the best our Commonwealth has to offer. I played WCC last week with three of my golfing amigos and … [Read more...]
Choosing The Right Ball
The golf pros endorse this ball or that one because they perform better on the greens. The greens? I suppose they mean that elusive place you’ll eventually end up if you strike the ball often enough and don’t run out of them on a long Par 5 lined with water hazards. But when the pros speak of greens, they mean hitting the ball close to the flagstick on no worse than the second shot. It sometimes … [Read more...]
Getting Out of Rough Places
Getting Out of “Rough” Places In heaven, when you hit a golf ball, it will land on Cavalier Zoysia, every time. It will be just like the fairways at Stoney Creek’s famous Tuckahoe course. In golf heaven, the lie in the fairway will always be perfect, sitting up on top of the grass, ready to be crushed with an iron or a wood. And in golf heaven, every swing will be perfect. Down … [Read more...]
A Visit to Mountain Greens
One good thing about being too poor to afford a golf membership at a ritzy country club is that you get to play a lot of different courses. And for those frugal golfers who invest a few bucks in a VSGA card each spring, you can often play some great courses at a fraction of the normal greens fees. Kevin and Greg, two of my regular golf amigos, wanted to play a different course last week and … [Read more...]
The Art of Putting
A golf hole is 4 1/4-inches wide. A golf ball is much smaller, a couple inches or so. So it should be a fairly easy task to knock a small ball into the much larger hole when the ball is lying at rest on a manicured, bent grass green. This is called putting, a part of the game that makes golfers wake up in cold sweats on hot summer nights. Daryl Daughtrey, a retired PGA Head Golf Professional, … [Read more...]