By Design – Issue 52, Spring 2021

16 Inspired by the classics ASGCA DESIGN EXCELLENCE CUTALONG GOLF COURSE T he new Cutalong Golf Course at Lake Anna, Virginia, opened for play towards the end of 2020, bringing a project that golf gourse architect Tom Clark, ASGCA Fellow, had been working on for over 20 years to a satisfying conclusion. The project originally began in 1999 as a 27-hole course bordered by houses. Since then, the development endured multiple owners, a foreclosure and a bankruptcy. The first construction began in 2012, with only three holes completed before financial difficulties brought work to a halt. Utah-based lender Private Capital Group purchased the project, both real estate and golf, in 2018, and course construction started again that year. By the end of 2019, eleven holes and the practice facilities were complete. The final seven holes were finished in 2020. “My original intention was to create another National Golf Links, similar to the great Charles Blair Macdonald’s layout in Southampton,” said Clark, who exchanged ideas on how to incorporate classic holes into the layout with golf journalist Ron Whitten. “With some of Ron’s input we not only have Macdonald to draw from, but a host of other famous designers and now we even have a Civil War component.” New layout in Virginia is based on interpretations of famous golf holes. Cutalong comprises variations of famous golf holes, including a Biarritz green on the par-three twelfth (left), and Alister MacKenzie’s Gibraltar hole at Moortown for the par-three seventeenth (main image). Photo: Mike Klemme