You can still see cannons on the ridge at Cannon Ridge Golf Club, but now the battles are a little safer as golfers try to defeat this layout. Opened in 2003, it is a 7,100-yard par 71. Today's battles are waged with drivers and putters on L-93 bentgrass, which covers the greens, tee boxes and fairways, and tall fescue and Kentucky bluegrass in the roughs.
For Washington-area players, a trip to Augustine Golf Club in Virginia is like seeing an old friend who suddenly looks robust after a long illness. After closing in 2010, Augustine re-opened with little fanfare in April 2012. Irrigation and drainage work was extensive, roughly 1,000 trees were removed, and greens and bunkers were redone. The once-great course isn't quite what it used to be, but it's definitely recovered and poised to regain its original stature.
Billed as "the public's country club," the beauty of the land at Augustine Golf Club, near Washington, D.C., is unmistakable, and course designer Rick Jacobson made good use of it. On most of the tees, you can see the entire hole, including where the bunkers and hazards are. There really aren't any blind shots.
Forest Greens Golf Club in Triangle, Va., may seem like a private club, but in reality, it's a daily-fee track with perks like on-course beverage services and a large practice area. It's a fair course, without a whole lot of tricky drama or hidden treachery. With big, welcoming fairways and huge, modestly fast greens, this is a golf course you can enjoy again and again.
Jack Nicklaus' opening tee shot this week at Potomac Shores G.C. in Dumfries, Virginia came about seven years later than it was supposed to. Revived by SunCal and managed by Troon Golf, hilly Potomac Shores is the only public-access Nicklaus Signature design in the Beltway.
A challenging course, Cannon Ridge Golf Club is also a four-hour history lesson. This Deane Beman/Bobby Weed-designed, 7,100-yard par 71 not only provides plenty of interesting golf holes but several metal placards throughout the course that tell stories of battles and maneuvers that occurred during the Battle of Fredericksburg here in 1862.
Potomac Shores Golf Club, an upscale public course in Dumfries, Va., is set on rolling, forested hills on the banks of the Potomac. Almost every hole on this Jack Nicklaus design is encircled by dense forest, and very few holes are very flat. Most tee shots feature beautiful, elevated vantage points. Greens are large and undulating, so precision on approach shots is the key here.
Potomac Shores G.C. -- a Nicklaus design in northern Viriginia -- got seven years of grow-in before it opened in 2014. The result is a course more mature than its age.