Old White gives sporting chance to Sporting Club residents at famed Greenbrier Resort

Some talented PGA pro will win $1.08 million today at the inaugural Greenbrier Classic at the famed Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia.  He will need every penny of it if he wants to live inside the gates of the 6,500-acre community.

        A quick check of properties available via the Greenbrier Sporting

Club web site indicates just two homes available for under $1 million, the lesser expensive one a 2,419 square foot cottage at $795,000.  Everything else is well into the seven-figure range in the community’s 17 different neighborhoods (one named for longtime Greenbrier golf professional Sam Snead).  The expensive (and expansive) homes are a harmonious fit with the dramatic mountain background.

        White Sulphur Springs, WV, may be well off the beaten track, but the resort provides many of the pleasant distractions of a good vacation to its permanent residents.  The golf is varied and refined, starting with the par 70 Old White Course, where this weekend’s tour event is being played out.  With a reputation for impeccable shape and intriguing throwback design, the C.B. McDonald/Seth Raynor classic has been luring the rich, famous and golf addicted since 1914.  (President Woodrow Wilson was one of the first to play the course.)  Its fairways are generous but, like many classic designs, most of the challenge is on and around the greens, forcing thoughtful approach shots from the fairways.  The Old White’s  slope ratings are a bit of an anomaly:  From the tips at 6,867 yards, the slope is 137 (rating 73.7); the next tees play at 500 yards less but with a slope of 136 (rating 71.4).

        The Greenbrier and Meadows golf courses, the resorts two other 18s may not have the reputation of Old White, but count on them to be in outstanding shape if you visit.  In June, the Greenbrier added a casino to its long list of amenities.  Resort owner Jim Justice is immensely wealthy and committed to making a success of the grand old resort;  in that regard, a home at the Greenbrier Sporting Club, though expensive, should not be too much of a gamble.

The many faces of Old White in just two holes, the 8th (top) and 12th.

Photos by Tim Gavrich.