The Olde Farm

The Olde Farm Golf Club is located at Bristol in southwest Virginia and the Bobby Weed-designed course opened for play in 2000.

Weed routed Olde Farm through a valley that was once a thoroughfare for Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War. The club is located close to the Mason-Dixon demarcation line and new club members are presented with a bag containing one blue and one grey marble which represent either the Union or Confederate uniform. Whichever coloured marble they blindly pick determines which team they represent in the Olde Farm Ryder Cup–style Blue/Grey competition each May. Olde Farm Golf Club’s founder and owner, coal-mining baron Jim McGlothlin, dreamed up the concept.

The front nine holes are both strong and strategic, starting with the 589-yard, par five 1st. A brace of lengthy par threes at holes 4 and 6 have then to be negotiated before tackling the 322-yard 8th, a right doglegged short par four offering several tee to green options.

If anything, the inward half plays even tougher with a trio of par fours forming the backbone of the back nine at holes 13, 16 and 17. Measuring over 440 yards from the back tees, each of these uncompromising holes demand long, straight striking of the golf ball.

“As a construction manager at Long Cove, Bobby Weed was my first boss,” said Tom Doak in The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses, “and this is his best solo design… The pastoral setting is dotted by farm structures, and you might even play your approach shot off a barn roof onto the 6th green.”