The Virtues: Golf in Nashport, Ohio

The posted address is One Long Drive, Nashport, Ohio 43830, and the road is real: an OSRM nearest-waypoint call on the course coordinate returns three waypoints, all named Long Drive, at 29.9, 30.0 and 30.6 metres from the point. The nearest major airport is John Glenn Columbus International (CMH). The road route from the terminal area to the course measures 40.88 miles, running International Gateway, Sawyer Road, SR 317 Hamilton Road, SR 16 as East Broad Street, Broad Street Southwest, West Broad Street and Columbus Road, then SR 146 Nashport Road and finally Long Drive. The operator states the same scale in its own words on its rates page: "Located just 40 miles from downtown Columbus, Ohio." From Newark, the road distance to the course, measured from the Census-matched civic address at 40 West Main Street, is 10.93 miles. The Census address geocoder returns no match at all for "1 Long Drive, Nashport, OH 43830" — which is what a private drive does — so every piece of geography in this guide is derived from the course coordinate rather than from the street address. No source consulted publishes anything about parking, so this guide says nothing about it.

Arthur Hills designed it, and that attribution is doubly sourced: Golf Digest's course record lists "Designer: Arthur Hills, ASGCA," and the operator writes independently that the course was "designed by renowned golf course architect Arthur Hills." The operator describes it as a "par-72, 7,243-yard parkland-style course"; Golf Digest's record gives Holes 18, Length 7243, Slope 138, Facility Type Public. The opening year is stated nowhere on either the operator's pages or Golf Digest's course page, and this guide does not infer one. The nearest datable anchor is Golf Digest's own line that the course "won Golf Digest's award for Best New Upscale Public Course of 2000" — an award year, not an opening year, and it is not converted into one here. Golf Digest's Awards block records the fuller history: "100 Greatest Public: Ranked from 2003-'24. Highest ranking: 51st, 2013-'14" and "Best in State: Ranked inside the top 15, 2011-'14. Ranked inside the top 20, 2015-'26. 2025-'26 ranking (and previous): 16th." One contradiction is worth stating plainly rather than passing on. The operator's home page and course-details page both assert "Ranked No. 65 on Golf Digest's Top 100 Public Courses in America"; Golf Digest's own Awards block says that ranking ran "from 2003-'24." This guide therefore does not repeat the No. 65 claim. The one recurring maintenance closure the operator posts is on its course-details page and it closes the range, not the course: "*Our driving range is closed every Monday for maintenance." No aerification, renovation, flood or course-closure notice appears anywhere on the operator's home, rates, course-details or events pages.

The operator calls itself "Ohio's premier public golf destination" on its home page and heads its course-details page "Play the #1 Public Course in Ohio," and its rates page reads: "Use our convenient online tee-time booking system or call our ProShop and we will be more than happy to help set up your tee-time! 740-763-1100." Because the site also carries "Memberships" and "Members Portal" navigation, the adjectives were not treated as sufficient, and the booking system itself was executed instead. The Book a Tee Time page embeds a Club Caddie widget; a session bootstrap returns a Session-Id header, which is replayed to POST the tee-sheet endpoint with the page's own form fields. With no account, no login, no membership, no resort stay and no sponsor, that request returned 21 bookable slots for Saturday 12 September 2026 from 15:30 to 18:50, 37 slots for Monday 14 September 2026 from 11:10 to 18:50, and 54 slots for Sunday 20 September 2026 from 08:00 to 18:50. Every pricing plan in every slot carries "TitleType":"Public" and "IsGuestRate":false, with "IncludesCart": true, a minimum of one player and up to four, and a live Book Now control. Access here is proved by behaviour, not by an adjective. Dates further out returned zero slots — 3 October 2026, for one — but that is the far edge of the online booking window rather than a closure: the engine answers with its own neutral filter message, "Use Time & Day Filters To Find Desired Tee-Times. To see more times adjust your filters for date, holes, players, or time of day," and posts no closure notice. The exact length of that window is not stated on any page, so this guide reports the bracket and not a number.

The operator's rate table carries a dated qualifier of its own, and it is the table's heading: "The Virtues Golf Club 2025." That is the only date attached to the table, and it reads 2025 while the same page's footer reads "© Copyright 2026 Virtues Golf Club – Powered by CLUB CADDIE." The mismatch is reported here rather than resolved. The season windows are given as month and day with no year. Spring, 3/01 to 5/01: Monday–Thursday $65, Monday–Thursday twilight from 2 pm $55, Friday–Sunday $95, Friday–Sunday twilight from 2 pm $65, replay $55, senior Monday–Thursday $60, junior 18 and under $40, and 36 holes of golf with lunch $120 Monday–Thursday or $160 Friday–Sunday. Summer, 5/02 to 9/30: Monday–Thursday $90, Monday–Thursday twilight from 2 pm $65, Friday–Sunday $140, Friday–Sunday twilight from 2 pm $80, replay $50 Monday–Thursday and $75 Friday–Sunday, senior Monday–Thursday $65, junior $40, and 36 holes with lunch $150 Monday–Thursday or $205 Friday–Sunday. Fall, 10/01 to 11/2: the Spring figures, with the replay rate at $45. Offseason, 11/3 to 2/28 and marked "weather dependant": Monday–Thursday $54, Friday–Sunday $64, twilight from 1 pm $54. The Summer and Fall replay lines carry their own qualifier, "Monday – Thursday and Friday – Sunday after 2 pm." The trailing conditions are the operator's: "Golf is available during the off-season, depending on weather conditions," "All rates are with cart unless specified," and "All prices include tax and are subject to change." As corroboration and not as a date, the booking engine quoted $140 for an 18-hole Sunday round and $80 after 2 pm on 20 September 2026, and $90 and $65 on Monday 14 September 2026 — the Summer column exactly. That does not make the table's qualifier read 2026, and this guide does not say it does. Golf Digest publishes a separate single figure of "$135" with the caveat "This covers all ranges of greens fees. Please check with the course on specific timing and pricing"; it matches nothing in the operator's table and is not published here.

There is no town at the course. The Census geocoder places it in unincorporated Hanover township, Licking County, with no incorporated place at all, and the same query at Columbus City Hall returns "Columbus city" — so the field works and the absence at the course means what it appears to mean. Newark, 10.93 road miles from the course, is where a visitor sleeps. Dining is on the property: the Overlook Restaurant sits in the clubhouse, which the operator's home page calls "our stunning 60,000-square-foot clubhouse—Licking and Muskingum County's premier event venue." The operator's events calendar is live and dated — its window headed "Events from September 10 – September 24" returned "3 events found," all at "The Virtues Golf Club-Overlook Restaurant, 1 Long Drive, Nashport, OH": Burger Night on 10 September 2026, Burger Menu on 17 September 2026 and Burger Night on 24 September 2026, each 3:00 pm to 8:00 pm. No course closure, shotgun or outing appears on that calendar. A caution about hours, because the site contradicts itself: the site-wide footer on every page fetched, including the September 2026 events page, still reads "Golf Shop Hours: Monday – Sunday 10am – 2pm (Winter Hours)" and "Restaurant Hours (Early Spring)," which the restaurant page's own hours block disagrees with. This guide therefore publishes no opening hours for either the golf shop or the restaurant; call 740-763-1100 before relying on any. The Virtues does have lodging on its own property, and its Stay & Play page says so in its own words: "Added in 2021: two four-thousand square foot houses located between hole #9 and the main entrance. Do you have a large traveling league or group? We can accommodate up to 32 players with lodging here on site," with a Matterport walkthrough labelled "3D Tour of Stay & Play House" published alongside it. That is an operator statement about the property rather than a room a visitor can book: the page carries no rate, no calendar, no room inventory and no booking control, only a group enquiry form headed "Virtues Stay and Play Golf Package Contact Form 2025," and the framing throughout is a group one. The same form carries the operator's own hotel list — "Virtues Golf Club onsite Housing. (Up to 32 players)," the DoubleTree by Hilton, Hampton Inn, Courtyard by Marriott and Cherry Valley Hotel in Newark, and a Quality Inn in Zanesville — and states that "Overnight accommodations will be coordinated by our staff for an enjoyable stay in local hotels that offer comfortable guest rooms, free breakfast, and easy access to other dining options and local attractions." One further item comes from the operator's restaurant page and was not independently re-fetched during verification, so it is recorded as the operator's statement rather than as a confirmed fact: the Overlook serving "lunch, dinner, and weekend brunch" under Executive Chef Jason Abele, with a carry-out line on (740) 763-1111 and a Friday and Saturday breakfast menu "available May–September only."

Of the five hotels on the course's own Stay & Play list, four are chain properties whose operator pages returned HTTP 403 to every request made for this guide. The fifth, the Cherry Valley Hotel, runs its own site, and it is the one published here. It is 15.21 road miles from The Virtues, by Long Drive, SR 146 Nashport Road, the SR 16 Newark Expressway, Thornwood Crossing and Cherry Valley Road — a larger figure than the 10.93 miles to Newark's civic address, because the hotel stands on the far side of Newark from the course. The Census coordinates endpoint places it inside Newark city, Licking County, the same county as The Virtues; a control query at 40 West Main Street returns the same two values, so the field is working.

No street address for the hotel appears in this guide, and the reason is a conflict in the sources rather than a gap in them. The operator writes its own address as Cherry Valley Rd SE. Put through the Census address geocoder, that string matches Cherry Valley Rd NE and returns the incorporated place Granville village — a different municipality from the one the hotel is in — while OSRM independently names the final leg of the driving route Cherry Valley Road Northeast. Town, county, telephone and official site carry everything a visitor needs, and the disputed string is left out rather than published wrong.

The operator lists 200 rooms averaging 365 square feet, all with king beds and a patio or balcony, executive suites at 600 square feet, an on-site restaurant and bar, complimentary parking, a 24/7 front desk and a 24/7 snack shop, free Wi-Fi, dog-friendly rooms at a $75 cleaning fee, and a heated indoor pool and exercise facility each open 9 AM to 9 PM, alongside more than 50,000 square feet of event space. What the hotel makes most of is its garden: "At the heart of our hotel lies our flourishing botanical garden and the country's only hotel arboretum, where a stunning variety of greenery—featuring a collection of over 2,000 varieties of flora and fauna—can be found on display." Check-in is 4 pm, check-out 11 am, and the telephone is 740-788-1200. No nightly rate is published here. The hotel advertises percentage offers — 20% off a two- or three-night stay, 25% off four nights or more, a fourth night free on three consecutive nights, and up to 15% off for booking more than five days in advance, each "Only available on direct bookings" and each carrying blackout dates — but a conditional promotion is not a rate, so none of it is quoted as a price.

Dining in the same building is Craftsman Kitchen & Terrace, which keeps its own site and answers the access question in the hotel's own FAQ: "Is your restaurant open to the public? Yes! Craftsman Kitchen and Terrace is open to the public. We recommend making a reservation." It describes "casual American-style cuisine" in a room looking over the hotel's ponds, waterfalls and botanicals, and The CK Pub, for "classic cocktails, beer, and wine served with an array of flavorful bar fare," and the Granville Pantry coffee counter operate alongside it. This guide publishes no opening hours for it, for the same reason it publishes none for the Overlook: the restaurant's own site carries a banner advertising weekday lunch from 11:30 AM to 3:00 PM, while the hotel's own FAQ states there is "no regular lunch service except through Crafted Carryout," and both pages were read on the same day.

The second course is Vista Golf Course, 2600 Hennessey Drive, Nashport, Ohio 43830 — 13.83 road miles from The Virtues, by SR 146 Nashport Road, Newark Road, Creamery Road, Prior Road, Fawn Drive, SR 60 Frazeysburg Road, then Vista View Drive North, Arnie's Drive, Ben's Place and Jack's Fairway, streets inside the residential community the course runs through. It is the nearest publicly accessible course to The Virtues on two independent enumerations: Golf Digest's own proximity lists, and an unbounded radius sweep of OpenStreetMap on the course coordinate that road-routed every candidate whose straight-line distance could beat it. Nothing beats 13.83. Golf Digest lists it as "Vista Golf Course: Vista View," Nashport, OH, Public, Holes 18, Length 6701, Designer Jack Kidwell, ASGCA, at (740) 453-4758. The operator's own footer states the course "was built in 1973." Its title carries a fact worth noticing: "Vista Golf Course - Nashport, Ohio - Muskingum County - 18 Hole, Par 71." The Census geocoder agrees — Vista is in Muskingum township, Muskingum County, again with no incorporated place — so the two courses sit in different counties under the same Nashport mailing address. Access rests on the operator's own words rather than on an executed booking, because the site offers no online booking widget; tee times are taken by telephone on (740) 453-4758. Its FAQ answers "How far in advance can I book a tee time?" with "14 days in advance" and "Do I need a tee time?" with "While walk ins are always welcome, tee times are strongly recommend." It adds that "Vista GC reserves the right to pair you will other players" and that "Groups with more than 4 players must get approval from the golf staff." The footer of every page reads: "Vista Golf Course welcomes men, women, and children of all ages with any or no playing ability." No membership, sponsor, resort stay or pass gates play; the site's Membership page is an optional product. Two things this guide will not tell you about Vista, because the operator does not. No green fee is published here: the rate table on the site carries no date of any kind, and the only years anywhere on that page are a footer "© 2017" and a line stating the course was built in 1973, neither of which dates the rates. And its openness on any given date is unverified rather than confirmed: its event calendar page loads but renders no events at all, and no closure, aerification, renovation or season statement appears anywhere on the site. Call before you go.