The Best Drives in Golf Part II

The mountains of western Virginia hold two of the most famous resorts in the world…I’m talking about The Greenbrier, and less than an hour away…10 minutes if you happen to be a crow…lies The Homestead.

Depending on the direction you are traveling, the drive in can range from sublime (from Charlottesville and the east) to malodorous (from Covington and the south). Once you pass the paper plant thouhg the latter offers you a drive that still gives me goosebumps just sitting here typing this. More on that in a minute.

A young colonel in the Colonial Army spent some time in these parts surveying the land around the resort…finding out just what the far west was about so he could report back to the King.

The father of our country may also have been thinking just how beautiful the state of Virginia was…that is when, thanks to him, it would become a state instead of a colony a couple decades later.

The Homestead has been welcoming guests since 1766. It was built to take advantage of the hot springs that pop up here and there in this section of the Shenendoah Valley.

In fact you can take a 10 minute ride up to the Jefferson Pools…two round wood structures in desperate need of some paint looking like a good breeze could knock them into history…after 225 years that’s probably a bit unlikely though so go for it.

You walk in and hang your clothes on a hook…there are separate houses for boys and girls…and jump into water that doesn’t smell particularly good, a little like Covington in fact. I’m not sure why but you just float in the water…maybe it’s the minerals.

On my first trip I noticed a door in the water on the perimeter of the pool. I asked the attendant (Gene) what it was and he told me to get out and he’d show me…we walked down a wet hallway until there was a flat rock seat against the outside wall of the pool. Next to the seat, about head high, were two ropes, one on each side. I sat down and surmised that the function of the ropes were to hold on to.

When I got situated on the rock, with it’s indentations in the perfect shape of butt cheeks Gene told me “hold on now!” so I did.

He pulled the door up and the water from the pool came rushing in beating the absolute shit out of my back…it was heaven!

As I was sitting there I couldn’t help but think that my ass was in the same place as several of the Founding Fathers…all there for the same reason…to have Gene lift up the door on this 18th century jacuzzi.

But as you drive up from Roanoke, about 45 minutes from the resort, the world starts to change…you’re going back in time…pastures, horses, winding mountain roads changing from sun to shade.

Then Sam Snead’s house and small family graveyard off to your left. You can almost see him running through these hills barefooted, probably with his dog not far behind.

There’s one place where you come around a curve and in front of you is the 4th hole at The Cascades…I don’t claim to have played a ton of mountain golf but for my money, The Cascades is the finest example we have.

The last time I was there was with my partner, Blair Leburn. We were on a week long road trip covering parts of western North Carolina and Virginia.

About a mile from the spot I told him how beautiful I thought this one place was in the road…and when we got there he knew just what I meant.

I can’t tell you why or what makes this place so special…it’s like the golf course has it’s own personal shade of green.

It’s like no other place in golf.