This is the Most UNDERRATED East Coast Golf Trip for CHEAP

If you are looking to book a golf trip with friends for a long weekend to celebrate the arrival of golf season, many areas on the East Coast will appeal to your buddies. However, getting a tee time at four or five courses is tough, and doing it for a reasonable price, factoring in accommodations, makes it even more challenging.

However, there is one place where you can book a three-night trip with four rounds of golf for about $500, and the golf will be as good as the company: Williamsburg, Virginia.

Tucked into the Southern portion of the state, Williamsburg is full of history, a legendary theme park with wild rollercoasters, and some great golf courses. You can use a travel agency that offers priority tee times and a choice of hotel or Airbnb, or you can do it independently. My group went through a travel agency to have a better rate and an increased chance of snagging a tee time at some of the area’s more exclusive courses.

All in before food and fun outside of golf, it only ran us $504 per person.

This is how you can get in a great golf trip with your buddies without breaking the bank, where we played, what we thought of the courses, and things we did when we had time to kill:

Courses

Belmont Golf Course – Richmond, VA

A fun little warm-up to our first round at a local course with a legendary reputation, Belmont Golf Course was just $12 to play a six-hole Par 3 course that was in excellent shape and offered an array of different challenges. 

The level changes on this course made it a super fun challenge, and it was much better than going to the range before our round:

There is also a 12-hole Championship Course and an 18-hole Putting Course that will truly test your ability with the flatstick. We stuck to the Par 3 course on Friday morning as something to do to kill some time, and it was nice not to have to pay an arm and a leg for a quick round at a well-manicured course.

It also seemed like the perfect number of swings to get warmed up, and the course provided us with some challenges, making it an ideal start to our trip.

Royal New Kent – New Kent, VA – 8.1/10

Perhaps our most anticipated visit of the entire trip was first as we traveled about 35 minutes from our hotel to the gem that is Royal New Kent Golf Club. This is easily the toughest course I’ve ever played. It was dry, fast, and there are a lot of things that truly test your mental game just as much as your actual golf game. 

The 6th hole at Royal New Kent is the most difficult on the course

The staff at RNK was very friendly and encouraging. They advised us to pick a tee where we could easily reach the fairways from and told us that conditions would be very difficult on the greens.

Every hole here is extremely different, and they’re all challenging in their own way. If you’re a 10-handicap or above, you’ll be extremely happy to pick up a few pars here and there, but do not be discouraged if the occasional double or triple bogey comes into play. It was really a difficult track, but I found the challenge to be a lot of fun.

I struggled a lot here, and it exposed many of my game’s shortcomings, especially 35-70 yard chips into extremely elevated greens, which is something I have a lot of trouble with.

9th tee box at Royal New Kent provides a great view of elevation changes, as well as the beautiful clubhouse

It was a good start to our trip, but one thing I would complain about is the pace of play. There were not a lot of groups on the course, but the foursomes in front of us did not know when to pick up their ball or consider leaving one that was long gone in the woods alone. A ranger even asked us if we’d like to get ahead of a group in front of us, and when we did, we immediately caught up to another.

Our two foursomes that came on the trip ended up playing together just a few holes in, and the eight of us were able to keep pace with several foursomes. I’d like to see RNK invest in some carts with screens and trackers, and more rangers around to keep the pace of play more reasonable. We teed off at 2:30 and did not wrap up until nearly 8 p.m.

The only good part about this is that we were able to catch a beautiful sunset on the 17th fairway:

The 17th fairway provided a beautiful sunset to wrap up our first round of the trip

My only advice for RNK is to play a tee off from where you would at your home club, and bring an extra dozen balls. The fescue was short compared to what it usually is. All in all, it was a solid 8 out of 10 experience.

The Club at Viniterra – New Kent, VA – 8.9/10

The Club at Viniterra was my favorite of the trip by a long shot. This was likely due to the early tee time we had, which provided cooler temperatures, a less congested course (surprisingly so for a Saturday morning), and a mix of both challenging and straightforward holes.

It was also great aesthetically, the course was in excellent shape, and the best part was that the staff was extremely friendly. The clubhouse manager checked us in, and I asked for some local knowledge and tips to plot our way around successfully.

He chased us down from the clubhouse to give us a couple of course books that included the history of the course and a good layout of each hole. They also had complementary water and coffee, both nice touches. Our starter, Harry, guided us to the first tee and shared local knowledge, which really helped us navigate the course.

Viniterra had a lot to offer. It was challenging, but it didn’t feel like I was outclassed by the course, like I was at Royal New Kent. Some holes are truly difficult, but there are also a handful that are manageable, granted you think your shot through and dial in. It was fun to putt on these greens as well, as they were beautifully trimmed and well manicured.

There were so many great holes on this course, many had bridges over water and swamps, or winding cart paths through the woods. There were also some phenomenal and beautiful homes surrounding the course.

I also appreciated the fact that this was the only course on the entire trip that offered a beverage cart, which was one of the big disappointments of the trip.

Viniterra would be the first place I’d recommend to someone if they were going to Williamsburg on a golf trip. This is where I would start because it felt as if the staff was the most welcoming, the course was my favorite design, and it had something to offer everyone in the group.

Brickshire Golf Club – Providence Forge, VA – 7.2/10

Providence Forge is very close to New Kent, and we played this course right after finishing up at Viniterra. It offered something more recreational and reminded me of a lot of the courses we play back home in Southern PA.

It wasn’t the most trimmed, and it wasn’t the prettiest, but it was the most fun because it featured wide-open fairways, lots of cart paths that went through nice neighborhoods, and the easiest green complexes of the four courses we played.

This round was cut short due to weather, but there were a handful of things I liked in the time we had there. First off, the Chicken Caesar Wrap was top-notch, and the course allowed for a lighter-hearted round of golf that was less mentally taxing than the other courses. Greens and fairways were accessible to even the lesser-seasoned players who were on the trip.

If you’re looking for a good time and you want to scramble with your group while drinking a few beverages, this is the place I’d recommend because it is the least structured course of the four. There was no starter, and the groups surrounding us seemed to be having a good time — just like us.

A few of the holes here were also based on holes from other famous courses, notably No. 3 at Augusta National and No. 11 at Pinehurst No. 2:

For what it’s worth, it was a very loose interpretation of the Par-Four third at Augusta.

I have no issues with Brickshire because I had a great time. If you’re looking for premium courses only, then you’ll likely want to steer clear of this one.

Kiskiack Golf Club – Williamsburg, VA – 8.7/10

Kiskiack seemed underwhelming when we drove onto the property, and we were definitely guilty of judging a book by its cover. Boy, were we wrong.

Kiskiack had an awesome clubhouse that was cozy, and an excellent pro shop was tucked away in the back left corner. The starter was very friendly and advised us that some of the course had been resodded. The Gold Tees were all the “tips” and only played at about 6,700 yards. It was manageable, but was lengthy from some tees. 

This course was EASILY in the best shape of all on the trip. Kiskiack’s groundskeepers deserve a gold medal for how great it looked despite all of the others looking sort of dry.

The greens at Kiskiack were among the fastest I’ve ever played. My foursome scrambled on the back nine as we had a five-hour drive home after our round. We had ten feet for Eagle on the 18th, and all four of us played plenty of break on the sharp, downhill, eight-foot breaker, and the ball rolled well past the hole to a putt of equal distance.

These greens were also full of ups and downs, tiers, and various breaks that made even the shortest putts far from a gimme.

The course was also complemented by ponds, wildlife, and some really beautiful landscaping that truly made it one of the more beautiful courses around:

Panoramic view of the 10th green (right) and 11th tee box (middle) with the bridge leading to the 11th green (left) at Kiskiack Golf Club.

I still can’t get over some of the awesome looks we had at Kiskiack:

It was a great way to round up our trip before we headed home. Kiskiack was a lot of fun and, in some ways, was the best course of the trip, despite it being the least anticipated.

All in All

It was a great trip filled with a lot of fun golf, and I truly can’t wait to go back and play some other courses in the area that we didn’t get to this time around. In terms of accommodations, we stayed at a Country Inn and Suites in Williamsburg, and everyone said that if we could do it over, we’d choose an Airbnb or a condo for more communal opportunities.

The eight of us only got to hang out on the course as the hotel rooms were too small to be together. That was basically the only change any of us would make.

If you are looking for a great weekend trip, check out Williamsburg!