With a pedigree that predates the Declaration of Independence, the Omni Homestead Resort has lengthy been the place historic figures keep and play.
Courtesy Omni Homestead Resort
With the Presidents Cup approaching, we’re reminded of the hyperlink between the sport we love and the best workplace in our land.
The tie runs deep.
William Taft was the OG of golfers within the Oval Workplace. Elected to the publish in 1908, Taft performed golf so usually that his predecessor and political mentor, Theodore Roosevelt, urged his protege to put aside his sticks.
Taft declined.
Amongst his favourite spots to peg it was at a venerable retreat within the Allegheny Mountains of Virginia that started life because the Homestead and is thought as we speak because the Omni Homestead Resort. A lot of Taft’s successors adopted in his path. Prior to now century-plus, 24 U.S. Presidents have stayed on the Omni Homestead. An excellent variety of them, together with Gerald Ford, Invoice Clinton and each Bushes, have stayed and performed.
VIPs of different stripes have been a relentless, too. Of all of the well-known names, few loom bigger across the property than native son, Sam Snead. Born in close by Ashwood, Va., Snead began caddying on the resort at age 7, later served as an assistant professional and have become the pinnacle skilled in 1934.
By then, the Omni Homestead was well-established as one of many nation’s marquee golf locations. Its first course, which opened in 1891 and was later redesigned by Donald Ross, is aptly referred to as the Outdated Course, and it’s stated to have the longest repeatedly working first tee within the U.S.
It additionally has a youthful sibling, the Cascades Course, which is sufficiently old so far again to the Golden Age. It was designed by William Flynn, within the early Twenties, and has hosted eight USGA nationwide championships, together with the U.S. Ladies’s Open.
Courtesy Photograph
Final 12 months, the Cascades celebrated its centennial. However across the resort, a lot of what was previous is new once more, due to a just lately accomplished $150 million renovation that included updates and restorations of all the pieces from the visitor rooms and the famed Nice Corridor to the bathhouses of the property’s scorching spring-fed swimming pools. In the meantime, recent historical past is commonly being made. In 2025, the Cascades Course will host the 2025 U.S. Senior Ladies’s Novice, adopted by the U.S. Senior Novice in 2029.
Simply final month, one other headline-making second occurred on property, when upkeep employees clearing bushes from the Outdated Course stumbled on a surprising discover: embedded within the trunk of a splintered oak was a rubber-covered golf ball with a throwback dimple sample that appeared so far to the early 1900s.
Although the provenance of the ball has but to be pinpointed, it’s potential it as soon as belonged to a POTUS.
As Omni director of golf Mark Fry advised GOLF.com: “You’ll be able to form of let your creativeness go in the direction of every kind of potentialities. Possibly this ball was hit by President Taft.”
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