Golden Horseshoe — Gold Course

The Gold Course at Golden Horseshoe is the Robert Trent Jones Sr. design that built golf's first island green in 1963, two decades before Pete Dye's more famous version at TPC Sawgrass. The par-3 16th, with a green entirely surrounded by water, remains one of the most visually arresting holes in Virginia and a piece of architectural history that deserves more recognition than it usually gets.

The course sits on the grounds of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, which gives it a setting unlike any other in the region. The routing moves through hilly, wooded terrain with mature hardwoods framing holes that rise and fall across the property.

From the back tees, the Gold Course plays 6,817 yards at par 71 with a slope of 144. That slope tells the story: this is a course that punishes imprecision, and Jones's characteristic large, contoured greens demand approach shots that account for both distance and angle. The bunkering guards approaches and greenside areas with placement that forces decisions on virtually every hole.

Golf Magazine formerly ranked the Gold Course in its Top 100 You Can Play, and the design holds up against that standard. Greens tilt and break in ways that reward you for taking time to read the surface from the fairway.

A Robert Trent Jones Sr. layout with real architectural credentials at public-course pricing. The history is genuine, the round is worth the drive, and the 16th hole still earns its photograph.