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The West Virginia Encyclopedia
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The West Virginia Encyclopedia
The Greenbrier’s Old White golf course is one of the oldest in the country and has been a stop on the PGA Tour since 2010.
In 1913, the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, the owners of the White Sulphur Springs resort, hired Charles Blair Macdonald to design the 18-hole course. Macdonald —who learned to play golf while attending school at St. Andrews, Scotland—modeled several of the holes after European golf courses. His assistant, Seth Raynor, supervised the construction of the course, which opened in 1914 and was named for the Old White Hotel, the predecessor of the Greenbrier. President Woodrow Wilson and his wife Ellen visited the resort during their Easter holiday in 1914, and he was one of the first people to play the Old White course.
Many of the sport’s top players have visited the resort and played on the Old White, including Bobby Jones, Walter Hagen, Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Lee Trevino, Jack Nicklaus, and Tom Watson. Greenbrier golf professional Sam Snead shot his final hole-in-one on the 18th hole in 1994 in front of guests eating Sunday brunch in the clubhouse.
Over time, the design of the Old White was modified, and many of the original features disappeared. In 2001, a Virginia golf architect, Lester George, was hired to return the course to the design developed by Macdonald and Raynor. George used old photos of the course to return it to the way it looked in 1922, following Raynor’s last visit. George refined the course again in preparation for the first Greenbrier Classic, the PGA golf tournament held at the resort each summer since 2010. The par 70 course is 7,287 yards long and is the oldest course played by golfers on the tour. The course became officially known as Old White TPC in 2011 when it became part of the Tournament Players Club network. The TPC network includes more than 30 premier golf courses that host PGA tournaments.
The Greenbrier features three other golf courses, including the Meadows, the Greenbrier, and the Snead. The Snead is a private course for homeowners at the Greenbrier.
Written by Becky Calwell