From the ground up
Hat Creek’ s journey from self-made golf course to Brookneal community hub
by CHRIS LANG
HAT CREEK GOLF COURSE’ S EXISTENCE starts with a simple premise— shovel in dirt.
In the mid-1970s, the property occupied by James and Glennie Singleton, which had been in the family for generations, was nearing the end of its run as a traditional tobacco and dairy farm, prompting the natural question of what was next.
James Singleton had an interest in golf, and Brookneal— located in the far southeast corner of Campbell Country in central Virginia— wasn’ t exactly flush with golf options. What if he turned the farm into a nine-hole golf course?
As Bill Singleton, son of James and current superintendent at Hat Creek, tells it, that’ s when Glennie started to ask questions, the main one being: Is this land actually suitable for a golf course?
So, they put shovel to soil, took several samples, and sent them off to Virginia Tech, home of one of the nation’ s leading turfgrass research programs, where Dr. A. J. Powell Jr. studied the dirt.
The report came back, but Glennie didn’ t know the first thing about analyzing soil, so she asked a friend, Charles Puckett, to help interpret.
“ He got so excited,” said Glennie, who will soon turn 98 and continues to be a presence at Hat Creek today.“ He’ d never seen a farm with samples like that.”
Fertile and silty and rife with soft red clay, the farm provided ideal conditions to build a golf course. But the family couldn’ t hire a famous architect to come in and design the property, so James, with help from friends with proper equipment, built a ninehole golf course from scratch on the family farm.
Most accomplished players from the area would either head north to Lynchburg to play at Boonsboro Country Club or south to Halifax to play at Green’ s Folly. So the grand opening brought an interesting mix of folks to Hat Creek.
“ Daddy did most of the work on it with his little old tractor head on the farm, and a blade,” Bill said.“ And it was the biggest mess of a golf course you’ ve
From the ground up
The Singletons took the family tobacco and dairy farm and turned it into a ninehole golf course. vsga. org M AY / J UNE 2026 | V IRGINIA G OLFER 25