Unique golf course reflects the man who built it : Bill Meadows carved out ‘19’ holes, one for warm-up, in Virginia. The 12th is the longest in the country.

Bill (Farmer) Meadows has always had a fix on his own nature.

When he was 21, he played golf once and knew he would become obsessed.

But he wanted to accomplish some other things in life. So he didn’t pick up another golf club for 35 years.

When he finally did, about three years ago, he went at it in his usual way, which is to say headlong. He hit hundreds of golf balls every day for a month before ever playing a round. A year after that, he decided he wasn’t content playing other people’s courses. He had to build his own.

It would be cheaper to play than most courses. The people would be friendlier. Every hole had to be unique. And, of course, it had to have the longest golf hole in America.

No. 12 at Meadows Farm Golf Course, carved out of the Virginia countryside near where James Madison lived, stretches 841 yards. Down a hill. Over a lake. Dogleg right. Up another hill. Over another lake. Paragraph mark.

Then past a sand trap shaped like a three-leaf clover. And up onto a green that is nearly half a football field long.

Par is six.

Twenty-nine more feet and the hole would have been half a mile long.

“How could I have been so stupid not to see that,” says Farmer--no one calls him Mr. Meadows. “I think I’m a pretty good promoter, but I screwed that up.”

Not to worry. The course, which opened in April, 1993, already attracts golfers from distant reaches. They come, the curious and the devout, past mobile homes and down a dirt road, as if making pilgrimages to a religious site.

To its adherents, golf is a form of mysticism. Its best players talk about reading books on Zen. The best book on the subject, “Golf in the Kingdom,” is a work of philosophy. In short, golf is as much an obsession with mental discipline as a sport. Which means it was tailor-made for Farmer.

Like the golf course he built, Farmer’s life is a testament to the spirit of a man with the confidence and the means to make things the way he wants.

After coaching high school football for 10 years, Farmer turned a summer roadside fruit stand and nursery business into what claims to be the largest privately owned nursery company in the country. The revenues of his 21 Meadows Farms Nurseries last year, Farmer says, were $22 million.

When he took to building a golf course, Farmer wanted three things to be different. First, each hole had to be unique. “Most designers have this idea in their minds of the perfect golf hole. Then they go out and build it 18 times.”

For ideas, Farmer bought $2,000 worth of glossy coffee table golf books, cutting out things he liked.

Four of the five architects he interviewed refused to attach their name to the sort of freak real estate he proposed. But the fifth, designer Bill Ward, signed on.

The course has 19 holes, one for warm-up.

It has “church pew” bunkers, like the eight famous ones at Oakmont, Pa., that not only resemble long, narrow church pews but are about as easy to get out of. Farmer’s course has 18 of them.

It has “bounce bunkers,” sand traps with wooden planks in the middle so a ball will ricochet off--in unpredictable directions.

It has an island green in the middle of a lake.

And it has a hole that resembles one of the most famous in golf: Augusta National’s peninsula green held up by a rock wall lined by azaleas. Here Farmer himself built the 210-ton wall by hand, with uncut stones and no cement, using skills taught him by an Italian-trained bricklayer from his nurseries.

Once he had the design, Farmer wanted the price of a round to be cheap. Playing 18 holes on a good course today can cost $50 to $100.

His fee is $25, including the cart.

“Most places spend $1 million on the clubhouse and $300,000 paving the cart path,” he says. Farmer’s clubhouse is two mobile homes. The cart paths are gravel.

The third difference is everyone says “thank you” a lot. “People at most golf courses are on the brink of being rude.”

Then there is The Hole.

Farmer wanted it to be the longest in the world. That distinction belongs to 948 preposterous yards at Koolan Island in Australia, a hole that uses an airport runway for part of the fairway. You can play it only when no planes are landing.

Then there was the United States Golf Assn., which wouldn’t sanction anything longer than par six.

Lacking the extra hundred yards and hoping some day for a pro tournament, Meadows had to settle, in this case for the American record. Yet as anyone who plays a round of golf with Farmer learns, having to play by the rules is not something he takes to.

On the 16th fairway, Farmer moves his ball forward off the cart path, a violation of the Rules of Golf. “I know you’re not supposed to move the ball closer to the hole when you’re fixing your lie,” he explains. “But I’m not accustomed to moving backward.”