Laurel Hill

Fairfax County Park Authority in Northern Virginia manages a portfolio of eight golf courses and its flagship complex at Laurel Hill is widely regarded as worthy of inclusion in the list of the top 100 public access facilities in the mid Atlantic States.

The course at Laurel Hill Golf Club occupies 280 acres of a huge 3000-acre site that was once used as Lorton Prison and the old buildings, fences and barbed wire of the Correction Facility can still be seen. A number of barns and silos also occupy part of the property and these are remnants of the working dairy farm that prisoners used to operate.

Earth walls that surrounded the practice target range and teargas practice area of the penitentiary had to be bulldozed during construction of the course and it's said that over three tons of lead was removed in the process.

The rolling nature of the terrain and the sheer scale of the property give an expansive feel to Laurel Hill with generously proportioned holes routed over a wide area.

The par four 6th is a 500-yard monster from the back tees (even if it is does play downhill) and the 17th deserves a similar description as it plays only seven yards shorter. These two are balanced however by short par fours at holes 7 and 10. The best of the four par threes on the card is played last at the 16th, where the tee shot from an elevated position must avoid water to the front and left of a raised green that's also protected by three bunkers.

Quotes such as "shatters all municipal stereotypes," "rivals any course in Northern Virginia" and "makes you think five star resort instead of county municipal" go a long way to summing up what a lot of golfers who have played here think of Laurel Hill.