For various reasons I haven’t been all that ambitious this spring when it comes to collecting courses! I won’t bore you with the details but I’ll just say that golf hasn’t interested me much in the last few months.

However, some beautiful weather won on Saturday and I caved for some golf! I headed over to Williamsburg to check out the Jamestown Course at Williamsburg National. But, more on that in the next post! On my way I made a small detour for a morning round here at Prince George Golf Course.

I left Charlottesville a little later than I wanted so I called over to the proshop along the way. My tardiness turned out to be no issue at all! There were only a handful of cars in the parking lot and the 1st tee was open for me. It was a speedy round, as I played in 2.5 hours!

Prince George was one of those courses I’ve hesitated playing over the years, just because I never could get a feel for the conditions. However, I’ve played most of the public courses in Richmond and for $30 it wasn’t a big deal if the conditions were lacking. So, I decided to give it a try as I cannot get too picky these days for a new course!

Unfortunately, the conditions weren’t great. Sadly, there is no other way to put it! Prince George is a mom-and-pop type course so the funds just don’t seem to be there right now for the conditioning.

The fairways and rough didn’t have much grass and there were large bare patches in them. Lies were tight and I had to try to clip the ball first when playing off the turf. Thankfully, during my recent rounds in Florida I got used to the lower bump and run and was able to use that here! Hopefully Mother Nature will be kind this year to allow better growing conditions.

The main positive about the conditions were the greens! The greens have been redone recently and they are beautiful, bermuda surfaces. They rolled well and at a medium pace.

If you can look beyond the patchy turf then I think you’ll find that Prince George has some old-school charm! The setting is solid as the course lies within a group of pine trees. Railroad tracks line one side of the course while hardwoods border another.

From what I can find the course was built in 1972, but the design felt older than that. Most of the holes run parallel to each other and are separated by pines. Tees are close to the greens and the greens are smaller surfaces, generally sloping from back to front. The design is basic and efficient, which is nice to see!

Another thing Prince George has going for it is that it is a good beginners course. Even from the blue tees the course is very friendly (6624/71.4/125). You need to keep it between the tree line to score but if you do hit it into the trees you should be able to advance the ball forward without taking a penalty.

There isn’t much to highlight when it comes to individual holes, at least until you reach the 12th. The 12th through the 17th run out to the wooded property line and along its edge. These holes require you to think and made for a strong close.

Of those holes, the 14th and the 16th were my favorites. They are long par-3’s that play 190 and 201 yards, respectively. Both play over water and require a long iron while the 14th is slightly downhill. No doubt the 14th is the best looking hole at Prince George!

My round at Prince George ended up being mostly about seeing a new course (as most of my rounds are) and enjoying the nice weather. Three trains went past and I had lots of fun trying to get some pics/video of them!

Given the course’s distance from Richmond and its mediocre conditioning it probably isn’t worth going too far out of your way to play Prince George, unless you’re crazy like me! However, if the fairways get some TLC then a round or two here certainly won’t hurt.

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