Caddyshackpocalypse North: Planning Loophole Threatens Hidden Creek Golf Course, Prepare For Hellish Future of 16-Hole Rounds Of Golf

Life's just a little bit faster in the big city planned real estate development. That's why, one day soon, you might be able to whip through a 16-hole round of golf with your fellow dolphin bomb-strappers business clients -- an amazing 12 percent time savings! Or maybe just do the back eight and celebrate with drinks at a golf-themed bar called the 17th Hole.

You see, as part of the broader reworking of the Reston comprehensive plan, county planners have proposed a hellish, Manhattan-like grid of streets near the Wiehle Avenue Metro station. As part of this wonderland of woonerf, planners have proposed a new road that connects Issac Newton Square with American Way. While this new connection would allow lunchtime Taco Bell runs from the office building there to approach Mach 2, the topography suggests that it would shave two holes from the Hidden Creek golf course, as shown below.

Either that would make Hidden Creek a 16-hole golf course, or it would be one killer bunker. Maybe golfers could shave one point from their handicap every time they bank shots off slow-moving SUVs.

But we digress. Some have speculated that this is the county's way of trying to have things both ways: pretending to be supportive of Reston remaining a two golf course community while finding sneaky ways to undermine that goal in their relentless pursuit of swweeeeeeeeeet Metro-fueled developer tax revenues. If that's true, and this new road wasn't the byproduct of an overcaffienated planner with a square rule, then the recent hilarity involving that other golf course on the other side of the Toll Road could easily be rendered moot if the county allows a new owner to go through the normal development channels instead of claiming "by right" development, as Northwestern Mutual clumsily attempted to do.

Fortunately, the Reston Association has, as they say in the movies, a plan. The RA has explicitly asked for the offending road link to be removed from the comprehensive plan; we'll see if that actually winds up happening. Watch this exciting YouTubes video in which threats to both Reston's golf courses are detailed:

"There is no such thing as a valid 16-hole golf course," Reston council John McBride says, urging us all to stay engaged in protecting Reston from inappropriate development. We only wish we were more confident that the county will do the same.