Mattaponi Springs Golf Club

Overview: Mattaponi Springs Golf Club in Ruther Glen is an 18-hole par-72 course routed across a large former estate in Caroline County. Bob Lohmann and Mike Benkusky used the site's springs, streams, wetlands, wooded slopes and sandy soil as the framework for the design. The championship tees reach 6,937 yards, but the multiple teeing grounds let the same layout play at a more moderate scale. Elevation changes are part of the course's identity: fairways climb and fall through small valleys, while rock, water and angled greens make the approach line more important than a simple drive down the center.

History: The course opened in October 2004 after seven years of planning and construction. It was developed on the former Rose Hill estate, a 330-acre property where the project team spent years clearing, shaping, irrigating and growing in the course. Owner Jim Oliff worked closely with Lohmann and Benkusky, with the stated aim of fitting the golf into the land rather than forcing the land into a conventional template. The result was Lohmann's first East Coast design and a course whose wooded routing still reflects the original environmental brief.

Did You Know? The name comes from the many freshwater springs on the property that feed the Mattaponi River less than a mile downstream. The site also has close to 80 feet of elevation change in places, which helps explain why the 9th and 11th holes have such different lines and contours from their tee shots to the greens.