For the last 130 years , a love affair has existed between Virginia golfers and The Homestead . The resort ( today known as The Omni Homestead Resort ) in Hot Springs has served our Commonwealth ’ s golfers as a combination icon , playground , partner and old friend . The resort was already over a century old , a warm-spring spa and hotel that attracted a worldwide clientele when The Homestead cut some grass and facilitated some of the first gutta percha golf shots attempted in the Commonwealth .
Starting in 1892 as a six-hole layout just
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as golf was gaining a toehold in America , The Homestead ’ s Old Course soon became more than a novelty . By 1901 , the Old Course had been expanded to 18 holes . Soon thereafter , Donald Ross , the most prolific ( and some would say , most astute ) golf course architect of the era used a heavy hand in renovating it in 1913 to the sixpar-3 , six par-4 and six par-5 course we know today . Still , with a sense of history , the Old Course ’ s first tee remains the oldest teeing area in continual use in the U . S .
Pretty quickly , The Homestead realized golf wasn ’ t merely a fad but a valuable draw and started making plans to expand its
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offering . The resort hired William Flynn to create a course out of a rocky valley carved over millennia by classic mountain streams . Flynn , who could include Long Island ’ s Shinnecock Hills , Philadelphia ’ s Merion and Boston ’ s The Country Club in his resume , was the first established architect willing to take on the task . |
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