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Brandy Station could be par for the course
If I were king for the day:
I would devote the entire shift to fixing up things around Brandy Station. What has been going on around there has angered too many people, made too little sense, and involved too many of the other guys' pocket books.
Willow Run would be purchased for an honest dollar and become the future home of a golf resort complex. Pardon the pun, but history is on my side on this one.
Augusta National, home of the annual Masters tournament, once was a nursery. Hence the stand of ornamental trees, the banks of azaleas, the ponds and the stuff. Willow Run, which is now a nursery, could provide the raw material for one of the most dazzling courses in the state.
Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg is important to early Virginia archeology. Between the 17th green and the 18th tee of the River Course are the foundations of a Jamestown-era tavern and outbuildings. It's good, solid rock. A nice place for a golfer to thump his head if he misses a birdie putt on the par-3 17th. It's also a good place for a stroller to read about and envision the history of that picturesque setting on the banks of the James River.
Kingsmill, which was built by Anheuser-Busch as a companion project to Busch Gardens, was the home of the annual Busch Classic PGA tournament for more than a decade. It is now home to an LPGA Tour event. I want a tournament for my course, too. I want a PGA Seniors Tour event, which is much more competitive than the Tigers Woods Tour.
Equally important to Kingsmill is the conference center.
Groups, companies, foundations, and political groups from around the world have used the facilities to hammer out everything from climate change to former president Bill Clinton's foreign policy.
Willow Run is equipped for similar use.
It is hard by the Brandy Station battlefield, something that has boundless historic value as well as strong economic potential for Culpeper County. It has a location – near enough to both Washington and Richmond to be accessible -- that could make it an important conference center.
My complex will be built within the confines and environs of history. It will not disturb the battlefield. Instead it will use the battlefield in ways that will present that history to conference attendees, golfers, and casual strollers.
I won't go so far as to use mounted Jeb Stuart impersonators as course marshals, although that is not a bad idea. Imagine. First guy to yell "You da man!" after a putt is dragged to Fleetwood Hill and flogged.
No, wait. The plaque that commemorates Fleetwood Hill is now in somebody's yard. The more I think about that ... I better not think about that.
I'm going to hire a groundskeeper who knows how to do the green thing rather than go heavy on the fertilizer. Signs and placards everywhere, pointing out how the battle unfolded, what was on the land before the Civil War made it famous, what its uses have been since the Civil War.
Who will build this complex.
The breweries like to build stuff like this, so I'll get a brewery to do my bidding. They can even toss in a micro brewery if they feel the need.
Local people have priority on every job that is created. I am not going to import a bunch of bean counters from Washington to make sure the numbers are correct. Nor will I hire a bunch of bartenders, golf pros, caddies, and fairway attendants who learned their trades at far-off places. I'll hire the local folk and train them.
A golf course and meeting rooms won't be the end of it. There will be tennis courts and swimming pools and bicycle paths and horse trails and plenty of places to sit in the shade and take it all in. Dad can play golf, Mom can play tennis, and Junior can go swimming.
Most of all, however, neither history nor people who live in the Brandy Station area now will be insulted by the presence of my complex. Yes, property values will go up and that will mean more taxes. But they will never have to worry about losing the land of their heritage to cinder block and asphalt.
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