It has been a couple weeks since I’ve golfed and I’ve been getting antsy for another new course! I’m creeping up on course #150 in Virginia and course #700 overall, which is pretty incredible considering where I was when I moved to Virginia in 2012! Those are looking like fall celebrations, though. Today I ended up in Northern Virginia checking out two new to me courses on Saturday.
This year I’ve been trying to cross off as many public Northern Virginia courses as I can. I started with the ones that are closest to Charlottesville and have been working my way north and east. Northern Virginia had a low chance of thunderstorms on Saturday, which is partly how I ended up there. Well, a discounted $40 tee time at Forest Greens helped too! I read the course has bermuda fairways and I guessed it would be looking good this time of year, compared to the mostly bent grass fairway courses up this way.
And, you know what?! Sometimes, I am a smart guy! Forest Greens was looking awesome for this time of year. Normally the bent grass courses in Virginia struggle in the summer, so if you have any sort of seasonal rotation then Forest Greens should be a nice summer course. The fairways were mostly full with the occasional brown spot. I wouldn’t call the lies in them perfect as the ball sat down ever so slightly, and I had some thin lies. If the fairways were cut tighter I think that would have helped the ball sit up.
The greens were also impressive, considering the heat and massive amounts of rainfall this year. They rolled well and were somewhat fast for this time of year! The edges of the greens and the tees had some crusty and dried out spots, as you’ll see from my pictures. The bunkers were the ugly spot as they had large rocks that could tear up a wedge. The course looks a bit better in the pictures than it played, but for $40 on a weekend around these parts, you could not ask for better maintenance!
Forest Greens is designed by Clyde Johnston and I’ve played two of his other courses, Old South Golf Links in South Carolina and Cherry Blossom Golf & County Club in Kentucky. I really liked Old South while Cherry Blossom didn’t do much for me. Forest Greens opened in 1995 and is what I would call your usual Virginia layout with dense, tree-lined holes and very few flat spots. The nice thing is that there aren’t any homes surrounding the course! You get a glimpse of I-95 from the 10th hole and that is bound to remind you of your location in a densely populated area.
If you have played any other nearby courses (Augustine, Potomac Shores or The Gauntlet for example), then think along the lines of the topography of those courses, because that is what you’ll see at Forest Greens. Quite a few holes here play up to a rise in the fairway and then turn or go downhill. That means plenty of semi-blind landing areas and uncertainty for the first timer! Because of the elevation change I struggled to pick the best lines and couldn’t tell what the slopes in the greens looked like until I was up close, chipping or putting.
After not golfing for a couple weeks I opted for the blue tees which are 71.1/135/6360. I’m glad I did because Forest Greens is a difficult course. If you are off with your swing then things will get ugly with all the trouble around! Other modern design elements are present with distinctive bunkering and heavily contoured greens. I noticed many bunkers had been filled in so at least the course is more playable these days compared to when it opened. The greens have some odd shaped little tongues which I thought were great fun! It made judging the distance and lines with the irons much trickier than your average course.
While I wouldn’t describe the collection of holes at Forest Greens as noteworthy, the 9th and the 16th were my favorites. Even though the 9th is the longest par-4 on the course it doesn’t play that way! It features an elevated tee and an elevated green. You can really let the driver rip as long as you don’t miss it to the right, where there is water. The 16th is a pretty par-3 with a green that sits just in front of a small hillside. The green is well-bunkered and almost forces you to fire at one of the tongues or you risk leaving yourself a mammoth sized putt!
For those who may be curious, the pace of play was the normal 4.5 to 5 hour round in Northern Virginia. For me these days that is part of the price to pay for a new course. I’m certainly not jealous of those who have to deal with the packed courses every time out! My $0.02 is that Forest Greens is worth checking out for the right price if you call Northern Virginia home. It wasn’t the most comfortable course to play the first time, but I did enjoy my round here.
Course Pictures (click any picture to scroll through the gallery):