Preview Of Cascades Course At The Homestead

USGA Senior Women’s Amateur Championship

The Homestead (Cascades Course), Hot Springs, Va.

Sept. 12-17

Yardage: 5,515 yards

Par: 35-35—70

Defending champion: Diane Lang

Opened: 1923

Designer: William Flynn

USGA championships: The Cascades Course will be hosting its eighth USGA championship and the first since the 2000 U.S. Mid-Amateur won by Greg Puga.

Virginia and Senior Women’s Amateur: This will the second USGA Senior Women’s Amateur held in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Canadian Gayle Borthwick took the 1998 title at Golden Horseshoe’s Green Course in Williamsburg. No player from the state of Virginia has won the Senior Women’s Amateur.

Amateur hour: Catherine Lacoste remains the only amateur to have won the U.S. Women’s Open and the French woman did so in 1967 at The Homestead. Glenna Collett Vare also claimed one of her record six U.S. Women’s Amateur titles here when she took the 1928 championship.

Where are the shepherds: The Cascades Course is considered the epitome of mountain golf, featuring rolling terrain, tree-lined fairways and undulating greens.

Alternative activities: Besides golf, plenty of other recreational sports are available at The Homestead, including horseback riding, skeet shooting, trout fishing, nature walks to majestic waterfalls, tennis, spa, swimming, lawn bowling and in the winter, skiing and ice skating.

Unique finish: It’s not often that a championship layout ends with a par-3 hole, but contestants at the Senior Women’s Amateur will have to negotiate the 145-yard 18th hole. Recent USGA championships that ended with a par 3 include the 1997 U.S. Open (Congressional) and the 2001 U.S. Junior Amateur (Oak Hills C.C. in San Antonio).

Therapeutic retreat: In the 1700s, the aristocracy of Virginia discovered the pleasures of going to the springs in early summer for medicinal purposes, but soon the springs became an area for social and pleasure activity. The Warm Springs, located five miles from The Homestead, provided a gateway to the springs. Two covered pools have been preserved in their natural, if not original, condition. While time has aged the bath houses, the scene has not changed much from the days when visitors came prior to The Homestead being built. Many people boast of the curative properties of the pools (the Men’s Pool opened June 1, 1761 and the Ladies’ Pool on June 1, 1836). The Jefferson Pools remain the oldest existing spa structures in the U.S.

The Homestead and the U.S. presidency: Many past U.S. presidents, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, have become a part of The Homestead’s lore. According to The Homestead’s Web site, William McKinley was the first sitting president to play golf and he did so on the Old Course at The Homestead in 1899. The event drew the attention of the media as the Boston Evening Record conducted a survey among its readers to determine the “dignity and appropriateness” of the President playing golf. The results proved to be evenly split. William Howard Taft, another avid golfer, often spent several months at The Homestead. Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife discovered the soothing powers of the Jefferson Pools. And Gerald Ford once shot an 81 on the Cascades Course.

Genesis of a resort: Thomas Bullett had already begun surveying the region when he befriended Thomas and Andrew Lewis, fellow Militia officers and surveyors, and they recognized the medicinal potential of the area’s various springs. In June of 1763, they signed an agreement to develop the Hot Springs into what people today call a Spa Resort. Back then, Militia officers were often compensated with grants of land over money. On June 27, 1764, Bullett and the Lewis brothers obtained 300 acres of land that included all seven of the mineral springs in Hot Springs.  

Compiled by USGA Digital Media staff writer David Shefter