It's easy to make golf history in Virginia

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. – There are some golf courses in Virginia that can put a double-bogey in perspective.

At Cannon Ridge Golf Club, for example, you’ll find real cannons left over from the Civil War. Every few holes, there are plaques that tell you what happened there nearly 150 years ago. As you make your way to a tee, you cannot only read the par and yardage of the hole but the real struggles that took place generations ago.

While Gettysburg to the north is probably the best-known battlefield from the Civil War, more than 100,000 men lost their lives in bloody battles in and around Fredericksburg.

As with all things, of course, life has gone on, and the area has been developed quite nicely. Part of that development has included golf courses such as Cannon Ridge, Lee’s Hill Golf Club and Meadows Farm Golf Course in Locust Grove.

Lee’s Hill was the site of General Robert E. Lee’s 1862 winter camp, and at Meadows Farm, you can still see an old Civil War hospital.

You can’t help but notice these landmarks when you’re playing the golf courses. In some ways, it almost doesn’t seem right to be enjoying yourself knowing that suffering occurred in the same spot where you’re trying to save par.

But then again, when you consider human history, there aren’t many places on earth that have been devoid of indescribable suffering.

It’s too bad the golf courses weren’t there 150 years ago. Maybe the North and the South could have settled their differences with niblicks and mashies instead of sabers and muskets.