After plenty of rain and gloomy weather in recent weeks I was anxious to get out and play some golf at a new course on Sunday! It was supposed to be a sunny, but windy, day. I’m running out of new courses near Charlottesville so I decided that I’d check out a shorter course, Gypsy Hill. I didn’t expect a whole bunch, but the price was only $20.

The golf course is close to downtown Staunton, located in Gypsy Hill Park. You drive though the park to get to the clubhouse and pass by baseball fields, tennis courts, and some picnic areas.

I looked at the satellite image of the course before heading out and was feeling good about my chances of putting together a good score! From overhead, the course looks like a short, parkland style layout. The course is under 6,000 yards from the blue tees and has a low rating and slope. The stats on it from the blue tees are 5899/67.8/117. It plays as a par-71 and I was licking my chops for an easy round!

Well, uh, I got a few holes into the round and realized that Gypsy Hill was going to be a tough little course. What I failed to take into consideration before my round was the terrain. The course is built on a hillside and I’d almost call it a mountain/parkland hybrid course! Just about every hole has some elevation change and some holes have a two club change. An advantage of this is that you get some nice views.

I couldn’t find much on the designer of Gypsy Hill, but I believe it is Gene Hamm. I’m not 100% sure, but it is safe to say that Gypsy Hill is an older design. As an older course, it has many of the features that you’d expect from that era such as narrow fairways, small greens, and tee boxes that are close to the greens.

Besides all the elevation change, the greens and a few severe doglegs will present the most trouble at Gypsy Hill. The greens are small and are very difficult to play on because of so much slope, at least on the front nine. There are false edges on multiple sides and you could easily chip or putt it off the other side.

There’s no shortage of interesting holes at Gypsy Hill. On the front nine, the 2nd (a mid-length par-3) is one of the best looking holes on the course. It plays over water to a green that is cut into a hillside and framed by trees behind it. Make sure not to miss short as there is a steep bank that can kick shots back towards the water.

On the back nine I’ll mention the 13th and 14th, which are back-to-back short par-4’s that offered some scorecard relief. They are only 275 and 260 yards, respectively. Both my friend and I drove the green on the 13th and then I drove the 14th, leaving me with two eagle putts in a row!

The course is city owned and considering the price, I didn’t have high expectations for the maintenance. The word that comes to mind to describe the conditions would be “long”. The fairways and tees were a consistent height, just in need of a mow. The rough was a handful too and we spent plenty of time looking for balls after missing a fairway! The greens were slower, but there weren’t any bare patches and they rolled fine.

There are better choices than Gypsy Hill, but I had a good time as we played in a little over 3 hours and always love adding a course to my list. If you can avoid trouble on the front then you might be able to take advantage of the final few holes. I actually went -4 over the last 6 holes!

Course Pictures (click any picture to scroll through the gallery):