Lake Gaston Golf Club (Gasburg, VA on 06/18/18)

Our group rounds were over after Sunday but I was still eyeing two more courses on Monday! I stayed in Raleigh on Sunday night and there is no shortage of new courses down there for me to explore. However, I keep toying with the idea about trying to play every public course in Virginia! If I ever get serious about that then I’d need to make a couple trips down to the southern part of the state. I decided that this would be a good time to visit two Virginia courses near the North Carolina border.

I found some breakfast and called over to Lake Gaston Golf Club, one of the few eighteen hole courses in the area. I was told to come on out as long as I wouldn’t mind putting on some ugly looking greens. One of the owners (I’m assuming) explained that they recently lost most of their greens. Lake Gaston isn’t a top dollar course so I opted to play it anyway with the sketchy greens, because eventually I’d have to travel from Charlottesville to check it out.

The course is in the town of Gasburg, which is pretty much smack dab between I-85 and I-95. My detour to the course added maybe 30 minutes to the drive, so it wasn’t too bad. The whole area centers around Lake Gaston and Roanoke Rapids Lake, so it has a nice blend of recreation and country to it!

I checked in and $25 was my price of admission. I chatted with the owners again, and they were very apologetic about the greens. Come to find out, the greens were looking good as recently as two weeks ago before an endless amount of rain started to cause the roots to rot. I don’t know much about maintaining greens, but this year has been tough for Virginia courses. I’m aware of some top dollar courses in the same position as Lake Gaston.

The result of the root rot wasn’t pretty, and I sort of felt bad playing the course while it was struggling! I did my best not to take pictures of the trouble spots so keep that in mind when looking through my photos. Let’s just say you could hit putts on the greens but the color and amount of grass varied immensely from one green to another. Hopefully the owners will be able to sort this out over the coming months.

Other conditions at Lake Gaston were average at best. The fairways were scruffy and I had lots of inconsistent lies. The tees were pretty rough and you’re likely to find plenty of bare spots. Think along the lines of a country course and that is the type of maintenance that you’ll find here. Thankfully, I don’t need a perfectly maintained course to enjoy the day!

Although the course is called “Lake Gaston”, the lake isn’t visible from the course. The course is predominantly wooded with some hazards coming into play. If you ask me, the best thing about the course are going to be the pretty green complexes. You might have to use your imagination until the greens are healthy again, but many of the small green complexes just blend into the pines. It is one of those courses where every few holes you get a whiff of the pines and get excited to be outside!

I played the blue tees which are 67.5/108/5884. In theory, Lake Gaston should be pretty easy! It is a shorter par-72 with the traditional set-up of four par-3’s, four par-5’s and ten par-4’s. If you are a straight hitter, then I’m sure you’ll find the course just as easy as the scorecard indicates. If you don’t know where the ball is going then it will be a long day as your golf ball rattles around in the trees! There are some very short, tight holes here which you can take advantage of, but you need to be playing from the short grass. I only hit driver two times and I was still chipping it back in play!

While there aren’t any truly captivating holes at Lake Gaston the stretch from the 12th to the 15th is likely the best on the course. The 12th, a 165 yard par-3, was my personal favorite golf hole – it plays about a club downhill and through a chute of trees. There is a small creek that adds to the aesthetics but shouldn’t come into play unless you chunk it. The 13th, 14th and 15th have more separation compared to the other holes, and that is what I liked about them. The 14th is a 97 yard par-3 that will have you kicking yourself if you don’t at least make a par!

Even under the best of circumstances Lake Gaston isn’t worth traveling very far to play. It is a course for the locals that will allow them to get outside, drink beer and play golf. And, there’s nothing wrong with that! I wish every bit of luck to the owners as they have to make choices about how to best handle the dying greens!

#1 (382 yard par 4):