Lake Manassas is a outstanding presence on the again 9 at Robert Trent Jones Golf Membership.
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We’re aware of the celebrities, however what in regards to the stage?
As high feminine skilled golfers representing the United States and Europe put together for the 2024 Solheim Cup, listed below are 9 issues to learn about Robert Trent Jones Golf Membership, in Gainesville, Va., the place the biennial occasion will get underway this week.
The designer thought-about it his masterpiece
A prolific and profoundly influential architect, generally known as the “father” of fashionable golf design, Robert Trent Jones Sr. wasn’t shy in self-regard. However he solely named one membership after himself. “The terrain is aesthetically excellent,” Jones, Sr. mentioned of his eponymous undertaking, which he accomplished in 1991. “I don’t assume we may have performed something higher wherever.”
He came across the land accidentally
Within the early Nineteen Seventies, Jones Sr. was flying into Washington, D.C., to examine a web site for a possible course when he regarded down and was keen about a unique swath of land, alongside what’s now Lake Manassas, roughly 40 miles west of the capital. In subsequent years, he set about buying the property, parcel by parcel, till he had sufficient acreage to execute his imaginative and prescient.
The membership hosted the primary Presidents Cup (and three others)
Although the membership has by no means staged the Solheim Cup earlier than, that is hardly its first time within the highlight. It performed host to the inaugural Presidents Cup, in 1994, and reprised that function the subsequent 3 times the occasion was held on U.S. soil, in 1996, 2000 and 2005. It additionally was the location of the PGA Tour’s 2015 Quicken Loans Nationwide.
It’s not a rustic membership
No swimming pool. No tennis courts. No pickleball. No bocce. “We’re not what I might describe as ‘household pleasant’,” says Wayne Valis, a former longtime D.C. lobbyist who now works as a advisor and has been a member of the membership because it opened. “We’re a golf membership. We’ve got a variety of single-digit handicaps. It’s for people who find themselves severe in regards to the recreation.”
MJ is a member
It’s no secret that the GOAT loves golf. It’s additionally not a thriller how he likes to play it. Of the membership’s roughly 400 members, maybe the very best profile newbie is Michael Jordan, who will not be generally known as a fan of the $2 Nassau. “He’s a excessive curler,” Valis says. “When he comes right here, he’ll play 36, keep over and play 36 the subsequent day. And it’s excessive stakes all the way in which.”
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So is Barack Obama
It’s onerous for former U.S. Presidents to maintain a low profile. However Obama does his finest when he turns up on the membership. “He brings two secret service brokers and so they don’t carry rifles,” Valis says. “They put on lengthy shirts that conceal their firearms, Obama has them journey alongside in a single cart so that they seem like golfers. And he doesn’t play till late afternoon. He’s very unobtrusive.” Earlier this week, the previous Commander in Chief made an look on the membership to want the U.S. crew properly.
Invoice Clinton has a locker
Like each President Bushes, Invoice Clinton made good use of the membership throughout his time within the Oval Workplace, and he nonetheless retains a locker, although he doesn’t get out wherever close to as typically as he as soon as did. A giant fan of mulligans, Clinton broke few land-speed information. George H.W. Bush, in contrast, whipped round rapidly in a cart, getting by means of 18 in a shade below two-and-a-hours, pulling golf equipment with out pinpointing yardages and spending simply sufficient time over the ball to repeat a pre-shot mantra. Earlier than each swing, Valis says, the President would say quietly, “Mr. Clean, be with me!” Which typically turned out to be the case.
There’s an RTJ burger
His identify is on the membership and the grub. Properly, on one dish, anyway: the Robert Trent Jones burger, a staple on the clubhouse menu that’s made with a mixture of floor beef and sausage.
It’s a brawny design
Amongst different issues, Jones Sr. was recognized for ushering in an period of hero golf, with designs that required lengthy pressured carries and high-flying, aerial assaults. In lots of respects, this course suits that invoice. It suggestions out at greater than 7,400 yards, and its greens, a lot of which slope again to entrance, are guarded by bunkers that permit little wiggle room for run-ups. But it received’t play its full size for the Solheim Cup, the place the setup will probably be nearer to six,700 yards and embody quick par-4s and reachable par-5s with watery hassle: nice uncooked substances for match-play drama.
It builds in depth
Lake Manassas is a outstanding, unnerving presence, more and more in order rounds put on on. It first clamors for consideration on the par-3 ninth gap, which performs barely downhill to a peninsula inexperienced, and stays within the image for many of the again 9. Although there’s just one pressured carry throughout the lake itself (on the par-3 eleventh), the routing dances by the shoreline on its strategy to the end, and water repeatedly turns into an element, maybe most compellingly on the 480-yard 14th, a gettable par-5 that curls across the drink. The par-4 18th is a pleasant nail-biter, too, with a inexperienced onerous alongside the lake.
