# The Greenbrier Old White Course vs. Greenbrier Course: The White Sulphur Springs Choice

Source: https://thecourserankings.com/blog/the-greenbrier-old-white-course-vs-greenbrier-course/

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Course Comparisons / West Virginia


A golf course in autumn foliage. Photo: Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

One resort in White Sulphur Springs owns both sides of this argument, and both sides have a 59 in their past. Stuart Appleby shot a final-round 59 on the Old White to win the inaugural Greenbrier Classic in 2010. Sam Snead shot a third-round 59 on the Greenbrier Course at the 1959 Greenbrier Open. Two courses, two 59s, fifty years apart, at the same West Virginia resort. The choice between them is really a choice between two eras of American golf architecture, with Sam Snead standing in the middle of both stories, since he served as The Greenbrier's golf professional from the late 1940s until his death.

## The Greenbrier Old White Course

The Old White opened in 1914 as The Greenbrier's first 18-hole course, designed by Charles Blair Macdonald, the father of American golf architecture, with Seth Raynor's hand in the work. It takes its name from the Old White Hotel, which stood on the grounds from 1858 to 1922. Macdonald built his ideas from the great British holes, and the Old White carries his template holes openly: a Redan at the 8th, an Alps at the 13th, and an Eden at the 15th. Template holes are not copies in the lazy sense. They are arguments about what makes a hole great, transplanted to West Virginia ground and tested for over a century.

The modern chapter is just as strong. Lester George restored the course in 2006, and from 2010 it hosted The Greenbrier Classic on the PGA Tour, where Appleby's closing 59 won the first edition in the most dramatic way a tournament can be won. A Macdonald course hosting tour golf in the 21st century, and producing a 59 on Sunday, is a living link between the game's first American architect and its modern professional era. Resort access means any guest can walk that link.

## Greenbrier Course

The Greenbrier Course has the stranger biography. Seth Raynor built it in 1924 on a Macdonald and Raynor plan, then Jack Nicklaus redesigned it in 1977, reopening in 1978, a Golden Age routing rebuilt by the greatest player of the modern era for a specific purpose. The purpose arrived immediately. It hosted the 1979 Ryder Cup and later the 1994 Solheim Cup, two of the biggest team events in golf, on a course playing 6,675 yards to par 72. And before all of that, Snead's 59 in 1959, in his home resort's open, on his way to winning at 259 for the week.

One honest complication belongs in any current profile: the Greenbrier Course is currently open as a nine-hole routing, per the Greenbrier Valley visitors bureau. A comparison has to price that in. You are weighing a full, restored, tour-proven 18 against a historically loaded course that presently offers nine holes. History counts in our scoring, but holes you can play count too.

## The comparison, honestly

On architecture, this is closer than the casual fan expects, because both courses descend from the same Macdonald and Raynor root. The Old White kept its templates legible through a faithful restoration. The Greenbrier Course had its Raynor bones reworked by Nicklaus for team-match golf, which produced a different virtue: a course renovated to host the Ryder Cup at 6,675 yards, proving that match play drama does not require modern length. Concede the Greenbrier Course its finest point, that its event history, a Ryder Cup and a Solheim Cup, is heavier than the Old White's single tour stop, even one with a 59 attached.

On the day as it exists now, the Old White pulls away. Eighteen holes, restored templates, the Redan and the Alps and the Eden in sequence across a round, and a resort guest's ability to book the whole thing. The Greenbrier Course, as nine holes, becomes the connoisseur's add-on rather than the main event. In [our White Sulphur Springs town ranking](/blog/the-best-golf-courses-in-white-sulphur-springs-wv/), that current reality shapes the order.

## The verdict

Play the Old White first, and give it your best day. It is the resort's foundational course, its architectural textbook, and its modern tour stage in one, and the verdict of this comparison goes to it clearly.

Then play the Greenbrier Course anyway, for exactly the reasons it loses. Nine holes on a Raynor routing that Nicklaus rebuilt for a Ryder Cup, where Snead shot 59, is not a consolation round. It is a history lesson with a scorecard, best taken in the late afternoon after the Old White has had your morning. Guests with only time for one round should take the Old White without regret. Guests with a full Greenbrier stay should take both, in that order, and argue about Snead and Appleby over dinner. The state picture in [the 5 best golf courses in West Virginia](/blog/the-5-best-golf-courses-in-west-virginia/) starts at this resort either way.

**Reader responses are open.** Please cite a specific hole, a price, or a round you have played.