Featured Golf Trip: The Greenbrier

Few golf resorts in America can match the history of The Greenbrier.

Long before it became a bucket list golf destination, the spot in Sulphur Springs, West Virginia was a retreat for guests seeking its natural mineral springs. That was in the 18th century. By the 1830s, The Greenbrier had become something of a hang for high society—a “gathering place for politicians, judges, lawyers, diplomats, ministers, planters, and merchants,” as the resort ​explains​. The list included a handful of presidents. During the Civil War, it would transition into a hospital and military command center. It would again transform during World War II, serving as a refuge for diplomats in 1941 and, after it was acquired by the Army the following year, a 2,000-bed military hospital. During the Cold War, it concealed a fascinating secret: a massive underground ​bunker​ built to house the U.S. Congress in the event of a nuclear attack (the space is available to tour today).

By the 2000s, though, The Greenbrier was embarking on a journey to conjure up a sort of modern version of its historic roots. And that meant reinvesting in its collection of very good, very historic golf courses. There are but a very small handful of publicly accessible courses built by CB MacDonald and/or Seth Raynor; The Greenbrier has three.

Let’s start with the one that gets the most acclaim, which would be ​Old White​. Ranked 43rd on our composite top 100 public courses in America, Old White, remarkably, has won Golf Digest‘s award for best new remodel not once but twice, a reality of some devastating floods that hit the property in 2016. Lester George had restored CB’s original vision to much avail less than a decade earlier in 2007. Keith Foster would take on a total rebuild of the layout in 2016, miraculously readying it in time for the following year’s PGA Tour event, which it hosted from 2010 to 2019.

It was Alexander Findlay who originally architected a 9-hole version of what is now the ​Meadows​ course, before Raynor redesigned it when he came through the property in 1923. Dick Wilson expanded it to 18 holes in 1962, Bob Cupp redesigned it in 1999, and after the aforementioned floods, The Meadows got a full restoration. It registers on most lists of the ​top 10​ or so layouts in West Virginia.

And then there’s ​The Greenbrier​ course, an original Raynor design from that same period in the early 1920s. In many ways, its story feels incomplete. The Greenbrier course hosted both a Ryder Cup and Solheim Cup through the years and got a 1977 renovation from Jack Nicklaus. But the floods wreaked havoc, and today, just 10 holes are open for play. Guests can opt to go around once or twice.

Finally, and in the truest sign of the property embracing its place as a modern golf destination, The Greenbrier in 2018 added ​The Ashford​ short course, a 9-hole loop with yardages that max out around a gap wedge.

All of this goes down, of course, in a setting fit for the Gilded Age. It’s the 22nd-best golf resort in America, if you ​ask Golf Digest​, and the hospitality, from most accounts, is second to none. Come for a taste of Macdonald and Raynor. Stay for one of the most storied resorts in America.