Note on April 22: The flu bug prevented the trip to VA. We will regroup and head there later this year and report on our research. Apologies for the inconvenience. Trust me, I would have rather gone.
Small growing cities in the southeast can offer almost as much in the way of golf and lifestyle options as some of the more notable areas, such as Savannah, Charleston and Asheville. One of my personal favorites among these "mid-major" cities is Roanoke, VA, located in the Blue Ridge Mountains and featuring all the attributes of larger urban areas without many of the problems, except for crime rates, which are higher than the national average in a few of Roanoke's inner-city areas.
I am heading to Smith Mountain Lake, in the southwest region of Virginia, to meet up with a friend for a few days of golf. My friend's home at the lake is about 45 minutes from Roanoke, although Smith Mountain Lake is so irregularly shaped that you can be an additional half hour away at the other end of the lake; the roads leading to and from the lake do not roll out in anything resembling a straight line.
Lester George's layout at Ballyhack, on the edge of Roanoke, is one of the toughest in the east.
To date, the only golf course I have played in the Roanoke area is Ballyhack, a Lester George monster of a layout that dips and dives around some of the most treacherous looking bunkers you will find anywhere other than Kinloch, near Richmond, another Lester George layout. I can't wait to play it again next week, although it is probably a bad choice for a first round of the spring. You have to be fully prepared for Ballyhack, and I plan to find at least a driving range on my trip South from Connecticut to warm up the right muscles.
