The Omni Homestead Resort Spa Old Course

The Old Course at The Omni Homestead Resort & Spa in Hot Springs, Virginia is one of American golf's living museums. Golf here began in 1892 (six holes that players looped for a round), grew to eighteen distinct holes by 1901, and was reshaped by Donald Ross in 1913, with later updates attributed to William S. Flynn and Rees Jones. The resort claims the nation's oldest first tee still in continuous use — the same pad where President William McKinley is cited as the first sitting U.S. president to play golf, with later presidential rounds including Taft, Wilson, Ford, Clinton, and both Bushes.

What you play today is a unique ~6,099-yard, par-72 routing with six par 3s, six par 4s, and six par 5s — including back-to-back par 5s on both nines and a rare elevated par-3 finish that drops toward the hotel. The card looks short, but Allegheny elevation changes, contoured and off-camber fairways, tree-lined corridors, blind or semi-blind drives, and relatively small saucer-style greens with recurring false fronts (notably at holes 3, 6, 8, 12, and 16) make solid contact and distance control harder than the yardage suggests. Reviewers consistently call the Old Course more welcoming to all skill levels than the resort's companion Cascades course — prefer it for a strategic, scenic mountain round rather than a pure length test.