THE TASTEFUL SIGN IN FRONT OF CREIGHTON FARMS

Creighton Farms lies in the far western suburbs of DC and opened as a Ritz Carlton community. The Ritz imprinter is now gone but a very well maintained and attractive golf course remains. The rolling hills leading down to winding creeks makes this area of Virginia ideal for golf. Having grown up in D.C., I have always wondered why no great golf courses have been developed in this area.

A LARGE BUNKER GUARDS THE FIRST

Unfortunately Creighton Farms can not quite live up to the description great. It is a beautiful setting. There are a number of excellent holes and no true clunkers. But like many modern courses, Creighton Farms falls just short because of the details.

The bunkers edges are wavy and there are even a few islands in them. The problem is that there are no lips. The sand is raked to the very top of the bunker. They don’t looked they were created by a natural process but rather like they were drawn on paper. They don’t look natural, but rather like poor knock-offs of some of the bunkers on Doak or Coore/Crenshaw courses.

I believe that Creighton Farms was built immediately after Jack Nicklaus’s collaborated with Doak at Sebonack, and you can see some cross pollination. The greens at Creighton Farms are more of what I associate with Nicklaus pre-Sebonack; big undulations- interesting but not intricate. All in all I enjoyed the greens, which were in excellent condition. The Sebonack influence can seen more on the fairways.

THE RIPPLED FIFTH FAIRWAY

The surrounding landscape in the Virginia countryside features long, grassy slopes with almost no small scale movement. The fairways at Creighton Farms are the opposite. The graceful slopes are now rolling and heaving with three and four foot ridges and rolls. While this works on a sandy, links site, they are out of place here. This spring has been very wet in the area and the day we played the course was understandably soggy. Unfortunately these undulations stop the water from flowing freely to the low spots of the property. Instead the areas around the many catch basins remain wet long after they should be. These contours add difficulty by creating uneven stances, but that could have been achieved by simply leaving the sidehills as they were.

THE THIRTEENTH

POSITION A

While I knoe that Jack likes to think that his specialty is strategy and the proper placement of bunkers, he repeatedly designs holes that are so exacting and have so few options, that they become absurd for anyone who misses ideal locations. The fourteenth at Muirfield Village comes to mind.

THE SLIVER OF A GREEN

The thirteenth at Creighton Farms is similar, featuring an extremely narrow green that runs diagonally away from left to right. Position A, shown above is over the bunker on the left. It is a risky tee shot made more difficult by the cart path running jest a few steps from the fairway on the left. Even this position leaves a less than ideal angle into this green. The best angle to approach the green is about twenty yards to the left in a field that is out of bounds. Luckily the recovery shots around the green are much more playable than the fourteenth at Muirfield.

Please don’t read this as a negative review of the course, because it is not. I am just very critical. Overall, I enjoyed the layout and believe it is a valuable addition to the DC golf scene. It belongs in the same conversation with Congressional and Columbia when discussing the best courses in the area. It is that good. What disappointments me though, is that it is not head and shoulders above these courses.

I have added a sideshow so that you can get a better feel for the course.

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