Course Review: Meadows Farms

A short disclaimer before I begin the review... This past weekend, I was invited to come play this course with our good friend Flanman and his Flan-father under one condition: don't make a drunken ass of yourself. You see, Flanman's old man is a minister, and not one of the cool ones that molests little boys. No, he's one of the good ones, so I was instructed to restrict the alcohol intake and go easy on the fucking swearing. A seemingly impossible request, but I promised I would do my best. Therefore, I am saddened to announce that the following recap is rated PG: Pretty Gay.


Course Review: Meadows Farms (We played the Island/Waterfall combo)

Course Rating/Slope: 65.8/113 (If you play the Longest Hole 9, the course is much harder)

Yes there is a green on top of the waterfall, and yes my camera is a pile of shit

Location: Locust Grove, VA. With a name like this, you would hope that there would be swarms of locusts destroying crops and engulfing old people, but we were all disappointed to find that the only plague ravishing this town was poverty. The town itself was about 15 miles west of Fredericksburg, and if you are headed there from DC on a Saturday morning, DO NOT take I-95. Unless you happen to drive a monster truck.

Price: $50/Saturday round

Course Layout: The course itself is pretty fucking cool and appears to be have been designed by someone who was obsessed with mini-golf as a child. The course boasts a handful of novelty holes, which are scattered evenly over the 27-hole course. The course features a couple of island greens (both water and sand), a green located on top of a waterfall, a green located in the outfield of a disfigured baseball field, and their pride and joy, the Guinness Book of World Record's longest hole, a monstrous 800-plus yard Par 6. Thank Christ I didn't have to play that one.

The course wasn't all novelty holes though and featured plenty of challenging par 4's and 5's. The layout of the course was pretty decent and holes weren't on top on each other so your group has plenty of breathing room. My only complaint with the course was that it was too hilly. There were numerous occasions where I would hit a good looking drive that would sail over the hill never to be found again. I probably lost 6-8 balls on halfway-decent shots that drifted out of my sight line. Not surprisingly, I think that's bullshit.

flanman is either fishing for a lost ball or a discarded hot dog

Course Appearance: The course itself was in pretty good shape, although it was a little wet. Fairways and especially greens were really fast, and of course I compensated by pretending I had no dick when hitting all my putts.

Cart Girls: I don't even know what to say about this. They had some delightful nubes working the clubhouse and running errands around the course, but the cart "girl" was a grizzled older lady with a fake tan and a faker rack. I couldn't even look her in the eye when I first bought beers, it was a feeling similar to when a homeless man comes up to your car offering to wash your windshield. I felt even worse because I did not have any taco bell sauce packets to tip her with.

Clubhouse Food: 2 out of 5 Hotdog Rating. Half Smokes were overcooked, but the food and beer were cheap.

Carts: Oh man, the only thing sadder than Judas' betrayal of Jesus was my golf cart. I don't think they all were this bad, but I had to keep my foot on the gas for a good 5 seconds before the weed-whacker engine would come to life and take off. It must have grown to trust me throughout the day though as it did eventually get better. The only upside was that the governor on the cart was set high or might have been completely off, so I was able to pick up some speed and subsequently terrify ol' ruffino on the downhill paths.

Errant Shot of the Day: Can't really remember a good one, but I will go with the final hole, a par 5 where I ended up losing 3 balls, the last one ending up somewhere in the parking lot. May I suggest Feathered-Touch? You have selected POWER DRIVE.

this hole made me nostalgic of the old days, when i also didn't give a shit about baseball

Awkward Moment of the Day: Sadly, we avoided a majority of the awkward moments that have plagued us in the past due to our penchant for binge-drinking. There was an amusing moment when I went to grab my camera and came back to the tee box to take a shot of the island green, not realizing that Papa Flan was taking a mully as I obliviously attempted to turn it on and check the settings. I was this close to paying for my sins by means of a vengeful 9-iron.

Beers Drank: 8. And that's among 3 people... piss-fucking-poor. Also, Flanman owes me a beer.

Final Thoughts: A fun course that I would definitely play again, but first I'd have to figure out a new way to get down there. Using I-95 as the route is more disastrous than my epic failure of a social life. Also, I would need to do a much better job of keeping track of my drives in this hilly course. I didn't quite expect to lose track of that many balls off half-decent shots. The uniqueness of the course though makes up for these faults and it proved to overall be a fun time. I would also like to note that there is a TV in the clubhouse dedicated to the 'Skins, and a second TV dedicated to whoever the Cowboys are losing too. Now that, is fucking badass.