Several projects from Lester George, ASGCA, and George Golf Design, Inc., made their way onto the annual Golf Digest rankings. The George courses are in Virginia and West Virginia.
Kinloch Golf Club – in Manakin-Sabot, Virginia, just outside of Richmond – is again ranked the #1 golf course in Virginia by Golf Digest. Kinloch was also listed #56 nationally in the list of the Top 100 Courses. Kinloch was honored as Golf Digest’s Best New Course of 2001 when it opened and has consistently ranked highly on the magazine’s Top 100 lists for over a decade, as well as regularly being ranked in the top 25 on GolfWeek’s Top 100 Modern Courses list.
Two other George designs were also mentioned in the 2015 Golf Digest Virginia rankings. Ballyhack Golf Club in Roanoke, Virginia, ranked #6 in the state, and also recently placed among Golfweek’s Top 200 Residential Courses. The Country Club of Virginia’s James River Course, a 2005 George renovation, was listed #13 in Virginia this year.
Independence Golf Club in Midlothian, Virginia, recently redesigned by George, was selected as one of Golf Digest’s prestigious “2014 Best New Courses,” a list that includes both new designs and renovations.
Meanwhile, nestled in the mountains of White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, The Old White TPC at The Greenbrier was named #29 on Golf Digest’s list of 100 Best Public Courses. This is the course’s highest ranking in this category. In describing the course, Golf Digest wrote, “C.B. Macdonald’s nearly 100-year-old design of the Old White at The Greenbrier was always respected, but after Lester George’s restoration (re-establishing such things as a Principal’s Nose bunker and Dragon’s Teeth mounds), Golf Digest panelists rediscovered its pleasures and ranked it the Best New Public Remodel of 2007. It now hosts The Greenbrier Classic, an annual event on the PGA Tour.”
The Old White TPC was also ranked on Golf Digest’s Top 200 Courses at #141. This is the first time The Old White has appeared on this list, which includes both public and private courses. When the list of Top Courses was broken down by state, The Old White was rated the #3 course in West Virginia. Golfweek has also included The Old White TPC among their top 200 Resort, Casino, and Classic Courses lists.