Royal New Kent Golf Club

Mike Strantz did not build safe golf courses. His third solo design, Royal New Kent, opened in 1997 in Providence Forge, roughly 30 minutes west of Williamsburg, and it drew explicitly from the great Irish links: Royal County Down, Ballybunion, Lahinch. Golf Digest named it Best New Upscale Public Course that year, and the course has been provoking reactions ever since. Some golfers consider it one of the finest public courses in Virginia. Others find it punishing to the point of frustration. Both assessments contain truth, and neither tells the whole story.

The course stretches to 7,440 yards from the back tees with a slope of 140, making it the longest and one of the most demanding layouts in the Williamsburg area. Strantz shaped the terrain to create the rumpled, windswept aesthetic of links golf, with mounding, waste areas, and sight lines that require local knowledge or a willingness to trust the design. Blind and semi-blind shots appear throughout the routing, and the first time through, several tee shots require a leap of faith regarding line and distance. This is not a criticism. It is the nature of links-inspired architecture, and Strantz committed to the concept without compromise.

Champion Bermuda greens provide surfaces that are firm and receptive during the growing season, and the course plays best from April through October when the turf is at its peak. The greens themselves are Strantz's quiet triumph: they accept well-struck approach shots and create putting challenges that are interesting rather than arbitrary.

The course closed and later reopened under new ownership, a period that tested its reputation. The current operation has stabilized conditioning and restored the course to a standard that respects the original design. At $75 to $103, the green fee is remarkably reasonable for a course of this pedigree and difficulty. The price alone makes Royal New Kent worth the 30-minute drive from Williamsburg proper.

A word on course management: this is not a layout that rewards grip-it-and-rip-it golf. The wise play from the appropriate tees, with attention to the routing and the angles that Strantz built into each hole, produces a far more satisfying round than an aggressive approach from the tips. The course has four sets of tees, and playing the right one is the single most important decision of the day.

Royal New Kent is the Williamsburg area course most likely to stay with you after you leave. Whether that memory is affectionate or adversarial depends on your temperament, your handicap, and your willingness to accept that a golf course can be both difficult and fair without being easy. Strantz built something with genuine conviction here. The course asks the same of the golfer.