[PAmedic]

CHRIS: after this nice write-up, you oughta be able to score us a free round or two. I'll even let you buy at the 19th (or in this case- 10th) hole!

http://newsadvance.com/servlet/Satellit ... th=!sports

Oakwood opens nine-hole course

By Chris Lang
Lynchburg News & Advance
May 3, 2006

When Gary Verser made it around the new Oakwood Country Club nine for the first time earlier this week, he was a bit stunned about how the course played.
"It ate my lunch," said Verser, the general manager at Oakwood, Poplar Forest and Ivy Hill.

His handicap is around six, so he can only imagine how some of the city's duffers will feel when they play the new-look Oakwood for the first time.

The course re-opened Monday to the public, marking the last step in a $1.2 million renovation project that turned Oakwood from an outdated, tight 18-hole layout into a more spacious and challenging nine-hole course.

"It's nine distinctive holes," Verser said. "Once you play it, you'll remember each hole. It's not boring at all.

"It's not particularly long, but it is a tough course. You have to put the ball in the right places."

The original Oakwood layout was built in 1914, and as golf-club technology continued to grow, the 18-hole layout became outdated.

Oakwood, in a partnership with Lynchburg company New Vision Golf, scrapped the entire course and condensed it to its current nine.

The original price tag for the project was $700,000, but as construction began, costs increased, mostly because Oakwood wanted "to do things right," New Vision president Jennie Allman said.

"On our No. 8 fairway, we had always had wet spots there," Allman said. "After the actual construction was complete, it was still wet. So we went back in and had a local contractor do some extensive drainage.

"That was only $4,000. You can either do it right and be done with it for another $4,000, or for the next 10 years, complain about it being wet. We have chosen that path in a lot of areas."

The course, which is located at the corner of Link Road and Rivermont Ave., plays 3,090 from the tips. It features two par 5s (490 and 538 yards), three par 3s and four par 4s.

Fees range from $13 for walking nine on a weekday to $35 for riding 18 (playing nine holes twice) on the weekend.

"I think it's a golf course that's great for any level of the game," Allman said. "You don't have a lot of cutesy stuff on the course. It's made for real golf."

[bigsmooth]

i have been looking fwd. to oakwood's reopening. let me tell you the original course was horrible!!