The temps are cool but the courses smokin’ in the mountains that range from Pennsylvania to Georgia
Time may once have forgotten mountain towns like Sylva, N.C., but it’s remembered them since. Nestled in one of the misty river valleys that stretch their arms through the Blue Ridge mountains, Sylva’s an all-American community with a main street straight out of a movie set. Like nearby Asheville—a flourishing arts, foodie, and craft beer hot spot—Sylva has gotten hip in recent years, its full calendar of events and festivals catnip for out-of-towners.
Other towns in the Blue Ridge are enjoying similar revivals, and visitors aren’t flocking to them just to gawk at the scenery. Along with the awe-inspiring vistas you’ll encounter from every peak and crest, the region is also rightly famous for its deep cultural traditions. Bluegrass and folk music happenings like the Bristol Rhythm and Roots Reunion (on the Virginia-Tennessee border) and the jamborees held at Virginia’s Floyd Country Store draw enthusiasts from around the world. Studios of local artisans working in pottery, wood, textiles, and glass create one-of-a-kind pieces that make for beautiful souvenirs. History buffs can enjoy guided tours of sites like Asheville’s Biltmore Estate and the living history demonstrations put on by the area’s Native American peoples. And everywhere you go, the opportunities to sample the authentic flavors of the mountains at farmers’ markets and local food festivals prove irresistible, with slow-cooked barbecue topping the list.
Then there’s golf. The game isn’t new to these parts, but it’s hotter now than ever, largely because of the area’s delightfully cool summer temperatures. Thanks to the region’s high elevations, when temps are pushing triple digits elsewhere in the South, it’s a pleasant 75 degrees in Blue Ridge country.
In 1925, Donald Ross was recruited by Leonard Tufts, president of Pinehurst, to design “The Pinehurst of the Mountains,” the outstanding Roaring Gap Club. Ross also created Linville Golf Club near North Carolina’s Grandfather Mountain, as well as the Omni Grove Park Inn, Country Club of Asheville, and Biltmore Forest courses in Asheville—all of which are still thriving today. In the years since, golf has done a landslide business in the region, particularly in the private communities that are now home (or second home) to anyone looking to trade sweltering summer days for cooler alpine ones.
Some of the region’s courses are parkland layouts set in quiet valleys flanked by rocky ridges. But the more exhilarating options are the true mountain courses—the kind with vertigo-inducing terrain where designers can conceive holes that play uphill, downhill, sidehill, and everything in between. If the course is crisscrossed by serpentine cart paths featuring endless switchbacks, you know you’re in the right place.
Western Virginia offers two strong examples of this exciting species—black diamond tracks, not bunny slopes. One of the more dramatic is the Devil’s Knob Course at Wintergreen Resort, the state’s highest at 3,850 feet. It features fiendish inclines, tight corridors through dense stands of hardwoods and fragrant pines, granite outcroppings, and demanding holes like the 485-yard par-four 9th—an uphill, dogleg-right brute with a maniacal trickster of a two-tiered green. At Primland Resort, the mountaintop Highland Course is both beautifully manicured and rugged. One of many engaging diversions at this remote, five-star retreat, the course overlooks the Dan River Gorge and features large greens that, as at all mountain courses, require factoring in not just the visible breaks but the seemingly invisible ones created by the gravitational effects of big mountainsides. It opens with three roller-coaster par fives in the first six holes, and finishes with an uphill-then-downhill par four that may leave you wobbly.
Following the Blue Ridge Parkway southward into North Carolina, you enter mountain golf mecca. The Cashiers and Highlands areas southwest of Asheville are rife with standout courses, including several high-profile private clubs and communities like Wade Hampton, Mountaintop Golf & Lake Club, Trillium Links & Lake Club, and The Cliffs at Walnut Cove. If you have friends in any of these high places, you should definitely try to finagle an invite.
Balsam Mountain Preserve in Sylva is a private club community with a mountain course that’s one of the most dopamine-inducing, 18-hole thrill rides I’ve ever been on. Each day, a few foursomes of non-members are allowed to experience its jaw-dropping course, which was built at huge expense on terrain that features hundred-foot drops seemingly everywhere. Balsam’s massive property encompasses 4,400 acres of hillside and mountaintop, giving the course plenty of room to roam—with space left over for 40 miles of hiking/equestrian trails and another 40 of trout streams.
The Tarheel State boasts excellent mountain golf opportunities outside community gates, too, including two at upcountry resorts that serve up the full, 360-degreeBlue Ridge experience. The course at High Hampton Resort in Cashiers has everything you could want in a mountain track: elevation change, devilish greens, sweeping views, and untrammeled nature everywhere. The steeply uphill 10th with its terrifying two-tiered green is a good example; it’s short, but merciless.
In Highlands, the Old Edwards Club is private but accessible to guests of the Old Edwards Inn & Spa, where the amenities and accommodation options are equal parts rustic and luxe. The front nine here is more docile than the back, which sweeps high onto a granite ridge line and features more dips and climbs than the stock market. The views from this course, and from the inn’s rooftop terrace, will put you on top of the world—especially if you have one of the Inn’s blended bourbon Appalachian Lemonade cocktails in hand.
Just east of Cashiers, a day at Sapphire National is one filled with club selection guesswork. The green at the par-three 2nd hole is tucked between an imposing granite outcropping and a babbling brook 100 feet below the tee; the next hole plays uphill, then downhill, then uphill again. There’s never a dull moment—particularly at the par-four 13th, a hole with its own waterfall where your approach shot plays to a tabletop, postage-stamp green that repels balls like Teflon.
North of Asheville in Mars Hill, the idyllic routing at Wolf Laurel Country Club rises to an elevation of 4,800 feet. And what goes up must come down; plan for 1,000 feet of elevation change, with those rises and falls sometimes occurring on the same hole. At the wonderfully schizophrenic par-four 8th, it’s straight uphill from the tee, then straight down to the green miles below, making club selection twice tricky.
Players looking to gamble on more than just their golf swings will want to target Sequoyah National Golf Club, just outside Whittier. This demanding course and the nearby Harrah’s Cherokee Casino offer numerous chances to test your luck along with your skill. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a level lie anywhere. What you will find are extreme elevation changes, like the 100-plus-foot drop at the knee-knocking, par-four 15th.
Across the Georgia border, the drawls become a little more pronounced but the sweeping mountain vistas and club-selection quandaries remain the same. Old Toccoa Farm in Mineral Bluff opened in 2020 with a mix of holes occupying higher terrain and some lower, mountain-meadow ones, several of which run down to, or along, the Toccoa River. The upper holes stand out, both in terms of views and fun factor, but the bunkering and mounding are creative and present challenges throughout.
Lookout Mountain has a gently rolling, template-hole-rich Seth Raynor private course that everyone should play if they can. While in the neighborhood, don’t miss the Highlands Course at McLemore in Rising Fawn. The finishing hole at this dramatic course sits right at the edge of a sheer cliff and is decidedly not for the acrophobic. A second course there, The Keep, is slated to open this fall and include more cliff’s-edge drama.
If you time your fall visit right, you’ll be able to take in the annual Blue Ridge Blues and BBQ Festival in Blue Ridge, Ga., where they transform Main Street and host a three-day hoedown celebrating everything that makes mountain living magical. Bring your blue suede shoes—and a bib.
