An Afternoon at Blue Ridge Shadows Golf Club

There are several golf courses in the area of Front Royal, Virginia but the photographs on the web site of the Blue Ridge Shadows Golf Club intrigued me the most so I looked for online specials to play there.  Normally a golfer would pay about $40-44 to play a round of golf using a riding cart, but checking online through a web site that offers discounted tee times if you pre-pay I found a coupon deal to play for $22 plus tax per person.  The tee time was for 2PM, but that was doable in the somewhat cooler temperatures we had been having.  I received an e-mail from both the scheduling web site and Blue Ridge Shadows confirming the tee time (this had been an issue in Chula Vista a year ago) so we were good to go.

Set in the rolling hills outside of the Shenandoah National Park, Blue Ridge Shadows Golf Club has received several awards for best course, best course for women, new affordable public course, etc.  There is a huge clubhouse with a nicely stocked pro shop plus a restaurant and bar.  The golf carts don't have GPS systems, but they are stocked with free tees and a couple of towels for wiping off your clubs.  Our special deal also included a free bucket of range balls, but we passed on that due to the later tee time.  

From a distance the course appears to be in wonderful shape.  Close up, the damage from Hurricane Irene and T.S. Lee is evident in a few boggy areas of fairways and dead spots in several of the greens.  However, for the most part the fairways are in good condition and greenskeepers were out in force as we played. 

Sandtraps were everywhere and water hazards were cause for carefully played shots on nine of the holes.  The grass of the rough was links-style long and it was a good thing there were only about five sets of golfers on the entire course while we were there because Denny and I did have to spend a little time looking for golf balls in the long grass.  If you play a straight shot, then this will be a fun course for you.  There are enough slopes and hillsides to challenge you and distant vistas of the mountains add pleasure to the game here.

There are five sets of tee boxes per hole here at Blue Ridge Shadows; from the longest (black) tees your yardage is 7315 yards with a rating/slope of 75.5/143.  From the blues it's 6787 yards with a rating/slope of 73.1/138; white tees have a yardage of 6204 and 70.4/130 for the men and 75.9/142 for women who want to play a slightly longer course.  Seniors tees have a yardage of 5551 with a rating/slope of 68.2/122 for men and 73.3/128 for women and the shortest (red) tees have a yardage of 5006 and 70.0/120.  Greens here are cut short but run deceptively slow and those slow rolls will find dips and breaks in the greens that you'll never see.  Denny had a tough time with everything breaking left on his putts whereas I could never get the speed right.  The greens are also larger than what we're used to seeing on less expensive public courses which lent a more professional feel to the golf course.

Finishing up on the eighteen hole you approach not only the very attractive plantation style club house, but the green is set up with a rocky waterfall as a back drop with a wide creek in front of the green for one last challenge to your shot making.

Blue Ridge Shadows would be worth playing even at the regular price; Denny and I would play this course again in a heartbeat if we were ever to stop in the area again.  It is fun, challenging, scenic and in pretty good condition for the extreme weather conditions the area has suffered lately.  This is a golf course we'd recommend.

In The Beginning

Hi! We're the RV Vagabonds and we've been on the road since September of 1998. I've been blogging for six years about our travels, including writing posts about the golf courses we've played in several states and decided to transfer those posts to their own blog. Because strangely enough, not everyone enjoys golf--who knew?? My thought process for creating this blog was to share information about affordable golf courses for those on a tight budget like us.

I've only started blogging about the golf courses we've played the last few months although at one point in our travels I had a shoebox full of golf course scorecards to keep track of all the places we've played. After our third transfer of belongings due to buying a new RV over the last few years, I finally threw out all the scorecards. (I wish I had scanned them first, but oh well.) When Denny and I first hit the road, we had no specific destination in mind. I planned our travels based on two criteria; the campground had to be a part of the Passport America organization (50% off camping fees) and the campground had to be close to a Golf Card member golf course (Golf Card discounts back then were normally either 2 for 1 green fees or complimentary green fees with the rental of a power cart.) This worked well for us for a couple of years until both RVing and golfing became more popular with the crowd and the discounts became a little less discounted.

While we still use the Golf Card discount where we can, now I scour the Internet and the golf courses' websites for online tee time specials or information about ladies' days or senior days. In this way we're able play a round of golf once a week (remember, there are two of us on one pension) unless we're in a high tourist area and then we'll pass on playing golf. Because while we enjoy being out on the golf course bashing that little white ball around, we're not fanatics and we won't pay a ridiculous amount of money to play a course simply because it was built by a big name golfer (hi Jack!) or famous golf architect. Denny and I are from southern Ohio, where you can play a lot of good golf courses at extremely moderate prices. The Dayton, Ohio municipal courses are all fun, especially Community Golf Course in my hometown of Kettering, Ohio where there are two courses; the longer Outer Course and the shorter Inner Course. And now that I see what I have written about those two courses, I have to laugh. Anyway, in the Dayton area you can find a ton of golf courses in a 20 mile radius that are all fun to play and challenging for a variety of skill levels. Perhaps one of my posts will be a listing of those we've played dating back to the 80s but first I'll have to research prices because it's been a long time since we've played back there.

These posts will be weekly, because that's our schedule of play.

A Lovely Day at Legends Golf Course

After waiting two longs weeks for my strained muscle in my back to stop seizing up whenever I bent over, I finally felt loose enough to try swinging a golf club again. We chose the Legends Golf and Country Club, 1700 Legendary Blvd, Clermont, Florida (352) 243-1118 for our outing since we were able to play for $29.00 plus tax each after twelve noon, down from $35 + in the morning. And since it turned out to be a very cool day, having an afternoon tee time allowed the sun to take a tiny bit of the chill off the air.

Run as a country club the pro shop doesn't allow any jeans/jorts (jean shorts) or collarless shirts and you can't drive the golf carts into the parking lot. There are bag boys to assist you with your bag at the bag drop off and they will put your head covers back on after cleaning off your clubs at the end of your round--always a nice touch. We started off at the tenth hold and had only a threesome behind us for the first two holes and then they dropped well back so Denny and I felt no urgency to rush our play which is always nice and makes for better scoring for both of us. Denny played the blue tees (white at most courses) for a total yardage of 6491 with a slope/rating of 71.1/125. I played the purple (red) tee for a yardage of 4859 and a slope/rating of 68/108.

While the golf course itself is set within a housing development, the fairways are fairly wide in the areas of the homes although the houses can come into play with an errant shot. There are ponds to play around and over, lots of sand traps and the greens are can be tricky as many have slopes and shelves that don't have anywhere near as much break as they appear. Be forewarned!

The only time you'll hear any noise is when you are playing the two holes near Hwy 27, otherwise you'll play the course in near silence, at least at this time of year. The golf course is fairly well maintained although some folks were a bit remiss in taking care of their ball marks on the greens. I think when we come back to the area in two weeks we'll probably come back to this course to play again rather than look elsewhere, although there are certainly other courses that are also within a ten mile radius of the campground. I just played the course so well I'd like to try to do it again!