Where are all of our Mountaineer golfers at? What courses are you guys playing? Favorite holes across the state? Always looking for a loop or a meet up!
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I’ll get us started. Grew up in Winfield, and played every public course from Charleston to Huntington. Lots of buddies at Sleepy Hollow and had the mega junior membership there in high school. Glade Springs is an annual trip for me and my buddies, but Canaan, Sugarwood, Twisted Gun, Edgewood, and Pete Dye are some other favorites.
Still working on the Grails that are Pikewood National and Greenbrier Sporting Club. Snead looks sick.
Is there a better starting hole in all of WV than Old White? I think 3 on Woodhaven makes every iteration of my Dream 18
Any Appalachian Golf Society members out there too?
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Morgantown here.
I am a member and mostly play at The Pines here, but I do play at Mountainview and Lakeview with a few friends who are not at the Pines. I don’t know if they’re on the Refuge, but I’ve seen a couple other guys with NLU towels on the range before.
I refuse to play Mountaineer, what a disaster that course is. I used to really enjoy Meadow Ponds up here, until fucking Dan Ryan Builders bought it and started to develop on it.
I’m not originally from West Virginia and only came here for undergrad and then law school, and now I’ve stayed. So I don’t have a lot of experience elsewhere here. I played in a scramble at some course down near Charleston, I forget the name. It wasn’t very nice, though.
I would kill someone to get on Pikewood. Still have no idea how I’m ever going to be able to pull it off, though.
Sugarwood getting some love, nice.
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Grew up outside of Keyser and played at Mill Creek for ever. Many would say it is a horrible course but I love it and have some amazing memories there. Live in VA now but play a good bit at Canaan and Cacapon. When I was at WVU my roommates and I would play some of the courses around WVU.
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Grew up in Parkersburg, lived right by, played at, and one summer worked at the illustrious South Hills Golf Club (shoutout the “stories from working at a golf course” thread).
Not a good golf course. Not sure what I would consider the best course in the area, outside of the country clubs which I recall being decent in a few HS match appearances.
I also remember playing at Bel Meadows in Clarksburg a few times and thinking it was the hardest course I had ever seen, RTJ stuff.
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Dan Ryan Builders has a pretty good tendency of fucking anything up.
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What’s a “mega junior membership”?
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Tell me about the dye course in the state?
It’s been a few seasons since I’ve played Pete Dye, yet each hole still stands out and there are some remarkable ones mixed in. The course sits on reclaimed strip mining property outside of Bridgeport, WV and the mining heritage is featured in the character of the course. The property rolls across some significant elevation changes, and is bisected by a fairly large creek. Lots of classic Dye features, a good short par 4, a par 5 that plays downhill against a rock face with a large bunker, and a picturesque quasi-Short template hole all on the front. Number 2, a par 4 that crosses a creek from the tee and plays to a diagonal fairway, is consistently mentioned as one of the best holes in WV and I’ve seen it mentioned in a few “Best 100 in the US” lists. The Back is on a lower piece of land on the far side of the creek that is overlooked by the clubhouse. 15-18 are a true test coming in with a long downhill 3, long 5 parallel to a lake, a sub 400 par 4 with a disgustingly sloped and bowled green, and then a longer 4 played across a ravine. It would be a good course for championship golf, yet it hasn’t seen much recent action outside of WVU college tournaments at times. A nationwide tour event was stationed there until the mid to late 2000s, maybe like 06. The course Has not hosted any recent WVGA championships and is primarily utilized in US Open and US Am Local Qualifying.
Recently, the word is the course has fallen upon harder times and maintenance operations are being deferred. Heard that the Dye Family was putting pressure on the Club to shape up, or they would revoke the Pete Dye name from the club. Bridgeport isn’t flush with high paying golfers, as back in the day the joining fee was 25k. I’m sure the success of Pikewood National an hour up the road has hurt the out of town membership from Pitt and DC.
All things considered, I feel lucky as a West Virginian to have one of Pete Dye’s better and nationally acclaimed courses in our state. Even if conditioning is being neglected, I would still jump at any chance to play. The Ole Cart-Path-Through-The-Mineshaft trick between 6 and 7 is still just as fun as the first time through. My favorite Dye Course that I’ve played of Mystic Rock, Barefoot Dye, River Course at Va Tech, and Prestwick. Really good course on a scenic piece of land.
Anything I missed @sky ?
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It’s a special deal Jimmy cut my Dad for Fat Lard Teenagers like myself. I never felt like a proper member since I didn’t jump in the pool
Has anyone played Highlands at Fisher Mountain? If so, worth a ~3 hour drive to play?
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It’s all right. When I was there the bunkers were an absolute disaster, but the rest of the course was decent. I might not drive 3 hours to play it, though.
I was also there while visiting an ex girlfriend who lived down there and played with her dad and brother who combined to shoot about 300, so maybe I am a little biased and need to go back.
Also, if memory serves me correctly, isn’t it in that area by the big satellite dish down there with no cell phone reception? I seem to remember sitting in the cart trying to text a friend about wanting to drown myself, but found I had zero reception.
Thanks! I haven’t been in that area before but saw it ranked decently high on the public course lists. Will probably skip for now.
From Keyser, and enjoy mostly eastern panhandle courses and Maryland ones as well. Favorite places I have played are Canaan, Fisher Mountain, The Pines, and a nine hole course in Keyser called Polish Pines.
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Fore Sisters In Rawlings use to be really good but they have really let it go in recent years.
Has anyone played the Palmer course at Stonewalled Resort?
@JedPowPow what year were you at Winfield? Legitimately never expected to come across another Winfield native on the Refuge but glad you started the WV roll call thread.
My two WV rounds were at Twisted Gun in Mingo County on Labor Day 2019. I was on a road trip from the East Coast to Gethsemani Abbey up to Indiana and back east before relocating back to Scotland after 14 years. First time with consecutive sub-80 rounds. No idea if I’ll ever make it back but I loved that day.
For those in the southern portion of WV, please note that this is happening…
Signups are now live, and we aren’t going to let a little thing like the Wheeling Conventions stand in the way of counting you among our Virginia brothers (and sisters) for the purposes of this event.
@country35 - tagged for visibility
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