Sam Snead was fond of golf but fonder still of fishing.
He played the former, he once said, so that he could earn enough to enjoy the latter. Lucky him. In the rural Virginia region where he was born and raised, both pursuits were within easy reach.
Worldwide renown awaited Snead, of course. But he retained his ties to the place where he got started: the Omni Homestead Resort & Spa, an historic retreat tucked into the folds of the Allegheny Mountains. In his early 20s, he was hired as the head professional at the Cascades Course, one of the property’s two venerable layouts. It remained his home club throughout his life. In 1983, at age 71, he shot a course-record 60 that still stands.
If Snead were around today, he’d find the spirit of the resort familiar. The mountains haven’t moved. The trout still hold in the same cold streams. And the golf footprint is largely unchanged. But he would also notice an awful lot that’s new. Three years ago, the resort completed a $150 million-plus renovation, a top-to-bottom refresh that touched guest rooms, dining, the spa and the grounds themselves, without disturbing the bones of a luxe getaway that made it a destination in the first place.
Start with the golf. The Old Course’s first tee sits in the same spot it has occupied since 1892, longer than any other continuously operating first tee in America. It’s part of a layout later reworked by two Golden Age giants, William S. Flynn and Donald Ross. A short drive away, the Flynn-design Cascades unspools through the mountains, all compelling angles and elevation changes with a lofty reputation to match. It ranks 35th on GOLF’s list of Top 100 Courses You Can Play, making it the highest-rated public-access course in Virginia. Combined with the Old Course, it’s all the championship-caliber golf that you can ask for, classically designed, ideal for walking, and all the more alluring in the shoulder seasons. In springtime, as nature awakens from its slumber, the trees lining the fairways fill with birdsong. Come autumn, when the weather turns wonderfully crisp, foliage sets the area ablaze with color.
But just as golf was never the whole story for Snead, it’s not the only pull for visitors today. Outdoor activities abound, including guided fly fishing outings in the same waters where Snead loved to cast his line. The surrounding mountains that framed Snead’s boyhood are laced with hiking trails, now easier to access thanks to the resort’s post-renovation trail and outdoors program, offering everything from an easy morning leg-stretcher to a more ambitious ridge hike with stunning panoramas of the mountains. And after the exertion, there’s the spa, one of the oldest in the country, drawing on the same natural mineral springs that gave the surrounding town of Hot Springs its name and that have been pulling visitors, U.S. presidents among them, to this stretch of Virginia since long before Snead picked up a golf club.
That distinctive mix of outdoor adventure and stress-reducing relaxation is by design, in keeping with the theme of Omni’s prestigious and expanding golf portfolio. The Homestead is one of three Omni properties to earn a spot on GOLF’s list of Top 100 Golf Resorts in the World, alongside Omni Barton Creek Resort & Spa in Austin and Omni PGA Frisco Resort & Spa, the new home of the PGA of America outside Dallas. Altogether, the the collection now spans nearly 30 courses across a dozen resorts nationwide, with designs from architects ranging from Donald Ross and A.W. Tillinghast to modern names like Tom Fazio, Gil Hanse, and Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw.
Like Slammin’ Sammy, people come for the golf and stay for more.
For a buddies’ group, that’s the pitch: an invigorating trip that quickens your pulse but lowers your blood pressure, an active escape that also gives you room to do nothing at all. Test yourself on the same courses where generations of golfers have played before you. Chase Snead’s course record on the Cascades, or at least tell yourself you have a shot. Then close out the day the way Snead might have, rod in hand, mountains going gold at dusk, trading fish stories for golf stories. No need to embellish. At the Omni Homestead, the holds up nicely on its own.