Stumpy Lake Golf Course (Virginia Beach, VA on 07/14/18)

Next weekend, my family and I have plans to visit Asheville, North Carolina. It won’t be one of those go crazy golf trips so I wanted to get my golf fix this weekend! I kicked around a few locations in Virginia and opted to visit some courses in Virginia Beach. “Some” in this case meant three, so I really went nuts! The bulk of the courses that I’ve played in the Tidewater region are over near Suffolk or the I-664/I-64 interchange, because that is a shorter drive from Charlottesville and I don’t have to mess with much traffic over there.

Today though, I ventured into Virginia Beach as I wanted to play Heron Ridge Golf Club in the afternoon. That called for a morning time somewhere else and I saw a Golfnow hot deal for $33 at Stumpy Lake Golf Course. I jumped on that 7:45am tee time and was up early for the drive. Thankfully, that early in the morning traffic moved along, but there turned out to be a lot of beach traffic once I got to Williamsburg! Anyhow, I made it to the course with plenty of time to spare.

I checked in and waited with the starter for about 10 minutes to see if I was going to be paired up. The starter mentioned that multiple groups had canceled, which was puzzling on a perfect summer day! After no one showed, he said I could head out by myself. I tailed a threesome for most of the round but they moved quickly. It worked out to be a smidge over 3.5 hours. It was much busier when I left, so it worked out perfectly!

The golf course is located in the Stumpy Lake Natural Area, which is a wetlands area off the main roads. Not surprisingly, Stumpy Lake is what the area and the course are named after! The area isn’t developed so there are a ton of outdoorsy things to do. I saw people fishing and kayaking – it is a great spot for your outdoor activity of choice! Of course, mine is golf and the serene setting is what I liked the most about the course.

Stumpy Lake (which I’ll use to refer only to the course for the rest of the review) is one of the few Tidewater courses that I’ve played which is free of homes. It is just you and nature out there. Things should be very quiet and peaceful for your round, well at least you shouldn’t have many human distractions! During my round there was a hawk circling and screeching for two holes, a woodpecker doing his thing and some deer out wandering around. It felt as if I should have been hosting a nature show!

With such seclusion, Stumpy Lake presents nice visually. The course plays through the pines and hardwoods on the front nine and out near the lake on the back nine. The views aren’t going to blow you away like a mountain or seaside course, but the surroundings will likely have you thinking about something other than golf during some point of the round. On the back nine there are four holes which play along the lake – those holes turned out to be my favorites! More specifically, I liked the par-4 15th and par-4 18th as those holes bordered the lake. On the last hole my tee shot ended up on the right side of the fairway and when I got up to it I was surprised to see my ball so close to the lake!

When it comes to the design, Robert Trent Jones Sr. designed the course in 1958. I played the blue tees which are 71.3/127/6741 and from there I found many of what I’ll call his “signature” features. Stumpy Lake has those strip tee boxes, plenty of similar length holes and many similar looking holes. The way the tees are arranged mean that the angles don’t really change, no matter the tees you pick. Seven of the ten par 4’s play between 367 and 412 yards. The par 3’s were all long irons for me and the par 5’s were between 501 and 538 yards. Plus, every hole seems to have a bunker short left and short right. Those bunkers aren’t always greenside, however they give every hole a repetitive look. There just isn’t a ton of variety here, but that is Robert Trent Jones Sr. for you.

The biggest difficulty at Stumpy Lake is going to be keeping the ball from bouncing off all the trees. There are a handful of funny, tree-lined doglegs where you need to hit a slice or hook around the trees or just layup to the corner of the dogleg. If you can keep the ball in play then you’ll have a chance for a good score as you can bounce the ball onto the greens (between the bunkers) and make some putts, as the greens are flatter. I had plenty of left and right edge putts.

The conditions at Stumpy Lake were playable and didn’t affect my score. They are having trouble with the tees which were a mix of bermuda, weeds, crab grass and bare spots. That didn’t influence my game, it just made my tee box pictures turn out kind of ugly! The fairways were a touch longer and had portions missing. I took one drop from what I deemed a ground under repair spot in the fairway. The bunkers were thick and wet, but raked and didn’t have any rocks. The greens were solid as they were full and had plenty of grass – they were slow, just like you’d expect from bent grass in the summer around here. This isn’t a high-dollar course so I wouldn’t expect perfect conditioning.

Even though Stumpy Lake’s design isn’t all that interesting, I’d say the setting overshadows any design flaws! The course is a good walking course and if you can resist the temptation to hit driver then you might just find enough good scoring holes to keep you coming back. It turned out to be a nice morning round.

#1 (381 yard par 4):