Golf simulator unveiled at Pinecrest Golf Center

Nick Lemens, a member of the Annandale High School golf team, tries out the new TrackMan4.

The Pinecrest Golf Center has a brand-new TrackMan4 Golf Simulator, thanks to a $25,000 donation by longtime Bailey’s Crossroads residents and avid golfers Wayne and Angela Valis.

The simulator, in Pinecrest’s newly updated, renovated, and renamed Valis Family Golf Learning Center, was unveiled Sept. 15 at a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Wayne Valis speaks at the dedication of the Valis Family Golf Learning Center.

The simulator allows golfers to practice their swings all year long, select course environments and weather conditions, and get immediate data on speed, angles, and much more.

Wayne Valis, who has played on some of the top golf courses in the world, said the great thing about Pinecrest is that “it’s for people of modest means who can’t afford to play on ritzy courses.”

A round of golf at Pinecest is just $19 on weekdays and $23 on weekends.

“My goal is to make golf a democratic sport, and that’s democratic with a small d,” he said. “Sport should transcend politics.”

The Fairfax County Park Authority has signed on as a Silver-level sponsor of the Taste of Annandale and will bring some golf-related activities to the Oct. 13 street festival. Pinecrest, on Little River Turnpike and Braddock Road, is the only golf course in Mason District.

Wayne Valis started playing golf in his backyard in Bailey’s Crossroads at age 10 and at Pinecrest at age 13 when it was an 18-hole course. Wayne and his brother Neil used to sneak in when the course was closed; they would leave after the second warning from the police, he recalls. At that time, “Annandale was the edge of the wilderness.”

Before the 18-hole golf course was developed, the Pinecrest property had been part of the huge dairy farm owned by the Lynch family. In the mid-1980s, when a developer wanted to put up houses on the property, part of the golf course was saved but was reduced to its current size as a nine-hole course.

The Pinecrest community, which borders the course, has streets named for famous golf courses.

When the property was developed, Wayne Valis was unhappy, but says, “that’s the best we could get.” He recalls being in the second foursome when the course reopened on May 18, 1986, and held the course record for two weeks.

Now a semi-retired consultant, Valis worked in the White House in every administration from Nixon to Obama. He is heading to Scotland next week to represent the American members of St. Andrews Links at a celebration for the golf center’s 175th anniversary.