Greetings from ‘Virginia’s Tallest Town’

You’re on to something good when you hear about a course but details are scant. The directions you get lack street names, more of “one left, then two rights.” When you find the course, the locals welcome you, friendly enough. The driving range is “over there.” When you reach the first tee, you smile.

In the Appalachian Mountains, Fincastle is a few minutes off Interstate 77 and even closer to Graham High School in the town of Bluefield, Virginia. The course was designed by Dick Wilson and opened for play as a private, member-owned club in 1965. In 2013, a family purchased the course and kept it private until 2019, when the town bought it and opened it to the public. Fincastle now hosts around 20,000 rounds annually.

Anthony Phillips is the superintendent and he has been working at Fincastle for 14 years, through all of the management changes. He had taken a few college business classes before he realized “sitting in an office was not going to be a thing for me.” He then enrolled in the Virginia Tech turf program. His business background has helped him navigate change and he earned his first job as a superintendent at Tazewell County Country Club in Pounding Mill, Virginia, at the age of 23.

John O’Neal is Fincastle’s general manager; his son Hunter O’Neal is the director of golf and recreation. Phillips and O’Neal are town employees. Hunter played college golf and shifted from a job in IT to join the Fincastle team. When asked what it’s like to work with his father, he smiles and says, “We have been through it before. He was the principal at my high school.” Fincastle represents John’s “retirement job.”

They have been beyond dedicated to this course and its operations for many years and so have others. The course can support itself, but private donors make a difference. For instance, a restroom is being built on the course. An individual funded the addition. There are multiple anonymous examples of people contributing.

“I worked at the high school for 33 years, so I know everyone in town,” John says. “It helps with the community aspect because I can reach out and say, ‘I need $10,000. Can you please help us?’ I did the same thing at the school. If you want to do something special, it takes money. With Anthony managing the budget, and with Hunter taking care of the marketing and IT, we have put it all together.”

The clubhouse was old, and they have been modernizing the structure little by little. There are expenses the town has subsidized such as a new roof for the building, and pool and restaurant upgrades.

“The town manager is a retired colonel in the United States Army,” John says. “We talk about how much Bluefield has going for it, including the people and Fincastle.” It’s truly a collaborative effort.

Phillips agrees that the whole town seems invested with the property in some way. “If they don’t play golf, they use the pool. If they don’t use the pool, they play pickleball and use the tennis courts. Several people come out and run in the morning and bring their dogs. They’re out of here by 7:30 a.m.”

The course is surrounded by houses, one of them Hunter’s. Phillips lives on the property, too — his home is next to the maintenance facility. “About an hour and a half before dark, people will bring their kids out,” Phillips says. “They might play a few holes and the kids will run down the fairway and do cartwheels.”

“It’s my favorite time to come out, about 7:30 p.m.,” Hunter adds. “I hit balls for a while or just go to a hole and putt for a bit. We have a trail fee for people who own carts. That number has near doubled.” Fincastle is appreciated and enjoyed from sunup to sundown, including by deer and a big black bear.

Fincastle is fun. They have an annual Masters Menu that reflects the Champions Dinner at Augusta National Golf Club — some years are easier than others! — and they host weddings and receptions, parties and live music. Noah Spencer, a contestant from “The Voice,” recently performed. Other famous people have thrived here, too.

Stacy Lewis won the Women’s Western Amateur in 2006 and Brendon de Jonge is a Fincastle champion. Lanto Griffin played for several years on The Blue Ridge Junior Golf Tour, which started at Fincastle in 1999 and still has its headquarters here. All three turned professional.

Phillips is also a sought-after professional, supporting his colleagues with advice or helping them with their nutrition plans. Camaraderie and community are at the heart of this property but make no mistake, its soul belongs to golf.

At 2,600 feet, Bluefield (population: 5,001) is “Virginia’s Tallest Town,” a moniker proudly displayed on apparel worn by town employees. Views are serene throughout the 18-hole layout. The course plays up to 6,357 yards on the north slope of East River Mountain. The front nine has an open feel before shifting into significant elevation changes on the back.

With several Wilson characteristics, including offset tees, elevated putting surfaces and the requirement for a demanding variety of shots, Fincastle is a tough track despite the meager yardage. The turf is bentgrass, ryegrass and approximately 70 percent Poa annua, with three acres of greens, including the collars.

Fincastle had line valves around the greens until 1984 when single-row irrigation and a block system was installed. Timber was sold off the mountain to fund that system and it’s still in use. There’s no natural water on the course, but a pond holding 400,000 gallons was built. The pond is replenished by pumping water from over two miles away.

Unfortunately, the irrigation pump failed in early 2019 and it took four months to get it replaced. “We lost 60 percent of the golf course,” Phillips says. There was a drought, and dry conditions are one of Fincastle’s biggest challenges. No. 10 green was unplayable with a crack several inches wide and most of the other greens were 80 percent dirt. Despite the obstacles, the town considered buying the course.

Phillips met with the town leaders. “They said, ‘Can you bring it back?’,” Phillips remembers. “I said, ‘I believe I can.’ We did it with six people. Part of me hated it and I thought about leaving. If you let this business get to you, it will eat you every day. All you can do is do the best you can. And I hate to say this but part of me really loved trying to do it. I thought if I can do this, I have done something.”

Before it was clear how well the land would recover, a decision was made. “The best part was when we found out that the town was going to purchase the property,” Phillips says. “It was going to stay a golf course. That’s what drove everything to get going and we started talking about renovations.” Calculated improvements were made to ensure its viability as a public facility.

In August 2020, a $1.2 million renovation commenced. Aspen, a golf construction firm based in nearby Daniels, West Virginia, executed the work and the team worked with architects Damian Pascuzzo and Steve Pate from Pascuzzo/Pate Golf Design.

“We changed some of their stuff,” says Phillips, laughing alongside John and Hunter in an early spring 2024 clubhouse conversation. “It was so funny because Damian came in and he was like, ‘How did that bunker get back there on the right-hand side of 17?’ And we were like, ‘We just thought it fit!” No one would argue that it didn’t turn out beautifully.

The Fincastle team worked to stay open every day throughout the renovation. They redid the irrigation pond and four greens. “On the greens, I insisted on keeping my Poa,” Phillips says. “All we did was strip the sod, refloat them, add mix, and put it right back on.”

To make the course more playable, they widened corridors and reduced the speed and slope of the greens — some of which were at 8 percent. The greens were hurting scores and the pace of play. Natural areas were also reduced by about 15 acres as too much time was being spent looking for balls.

Drainage throughout the course is good despite being situated on heavy clay soil and catching runoff from the mountain. Even though Fincastle would command higher green fees as a public facility, the town wanted to respect the local economy and charge as little as possible. That impacts the agronomy budget.

Fincastle sees eight months of good weather. It’s drier and they have more play in fall than in spring. “We aerify less because we can’t be down three months,” Phillips says. “I aerify during spring and I verticut in two directions. We use our Wiedenmann and deep tine the greens 8 to 10 inches. In the fall, we core aerify with a quad-tine setup. It’s about 60 tines and that’s sufficient. It works for us.”

What is not working are the more than 600 pine trees growing on property since the 1970s. They will be hit hard over the next few years with the fast-moving pine bark beetle. The pest took about 20 trees last year. Clearing the trees is a lot of work. The crew knows what is coming, and Phillips will tell you how much the maintenance team means to this property.

“The core crew that come to work every day, I couldn’t do it without them,” he says. Phillips lays out their schedules for the day and they get to work. “They understand my way of doing things, but you have to have employees that take pride. If you don’t have that, you are screwed and that’s all there is to it.”

Most of the maintenance team is related, spanning three generations. John Hurley is the grandfather, Jacob Hurley is the grandson, and everyone else is in between, including Paul Watkins, PJ Watkins and Matt Puckett. Two employees — Greg Morgan and Todd Baker — are enjoying “retirement.”

“They all make Fincastle what it is,” Phillips says. “They are reliable, hard workers and they take pride in the job they do. They had zero golf course experience before they started, except John. I have no assistant, no spray tech, no irrigation tech. Everyone just jumps in where needed.”

Nearly every Friday from May through October the team hosts events, mostly fundraisers for various organizations. On holidays, they set the course up for a par-3 tournament. “We have so much fun,” Hunter says. “The biggest thing I have focused on is trying to get a golf community built because we had no golf community.”

The course’s leaders lament a lost generation of golfers when the cost of a country club membership was prohibitive for young adults and there was nowhere nearby to play. The nearest course is 35 minutes away. “We sell out our Appalachian Amateur Tournament and we put off 45 teams in our Spring Four-Ball,” Hunter says. The course supports two college golf teams and the teams at Graham High School. The younger golfers are coming back.

“The reason Fincastle is alive five years after the town has bought it is because of the love of the game — and that’s it,” John says. “If it wasn’t for the love of the game, we wouldn’t have a golf course.”

Fincastle is proudly owned by the town of Bluefield. A strong golf facility is part of the town’s appeal.

“You have a few restaurants, you got golf, you got Walmart,” Phillips says. “You don’t really need anything else.”

Lee Carr is a northeast Ohio-based writer and senior Golf Course Industry contributor.