Boar’s Head Resort in Virginia opens new Birdwood course

Boar’s Head Resort in Charlottesville, Virginia, has opened its new Birdwood course, which has been completely redesigned by Love Golf Design.

The project was instigated by the resort’s desire to introduce multiple infrastructure improvements, including a new golf building, tennis facilities and entry road. The new course now extends into a previously unused 50 acres of the property.

“Our challenge was routing the new 18 to interface with the existing clubhouse while still also passing by the historic Birdwood Mansion,” said Scot Sherman, golf architect at Love Golf Design. “So, it was clear that new property was to be used in the process. This certainly opened up wonderful views of the Blue Ridge Mountains and gave us very interesting property on which to build the new 18 and other facilities.”

The new golf facilities cover just over 220 acres including the 50 acres of unused property south of the old layout, on which nine new holes have been built. The corridors for five existing holes were reused in the new layout, while four others were rerouted.

Read more: Sherman spoke to GCA about the course in May last year, when seeding had just begun.

“Not long ago, Pete Dye was asked what was the best hole on his new design at Keswick,” said Sherman. “His response was, ‘18!’ The interviewer took it from there and described how interesting, challenging and memorable hole 18 was. Pete interrupted and barked back, ’I mean all 18 are the best!’ We somewhat take this cue from him and would apply these comments to Birdwood. There really are 18 stand-out holes on the course, which is testament to the quality and interest of the property and surrounding views. Lots of variety and a terrific client have come together to give us this great feeling about every hole.”

A new six-hole short course will open in the autumn, along with a one-acre putting course adjacent to the clubhouse. The project also included the building of a new practice facility for the University of Virginia’s men’s and women’s golf teams, short game practice areas for members and resort guests, and a larger practice ground for all players.

“Some of our favourite holes are those on the six-hole short course,” said Sherman. “These short holes give us an opportunity to take some chances we would not usually take.

“For the new putting course, we began to study the movement of the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains. It became clear to us that there was our inspiration for the shapes and contour of this new amenity. So, the course was shaped in a way to take cues from nature as our way to give it an authentic sense of place. We hope everyone will enjoy the crazy breaking putts!”

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