The Week Nashport Quietly Became the Center of Ohio Golf

"We look forward to hosting the best Amateurs in the State of Ohio and continuing the rich tradition the Ohio Am has offered over the years."

That was Scott Holmes, head professional at The Virtues Golf Club, talking about a tournament that turned a town of roughly 400 people into the center of Ohio golf for five days this July. If you live in Nashport, you probably noticed the extra traffic on Dillon Hills Drive or the unfamiliar cars parked near the clubhouse. What you may not have clocked is exactly how big a stage your town just stood on, or what that stage quietly offers you the rest of the year for a fraction of what it cost the golfers who came to compete on it.

A Small Course Hosting a Big Field

The 120th Ohio Amateur Championship ran July 20 through 24, opening with a practice round before two days of stroke play cut the field to the low 60 scores and ties. The golfers who teed it up at The Virtues didn't just show up. They earned their spot through six regional qualifiers held across the state, and the numbers from those qualifiers say something about how far this tournament reached before it ever touched Nashport.

That's 105 golfers from six different metro areas, all funneled into one course off State Route 16 in a township most of them had probably never driven through before. For a few days, a town smaller than a typical Columbus subdivision hosted a field pulled from every corner of Ohio.

The tournament itself came down to the final holes. Pickerington's Carson Bellish carded an even-par 72 in the last round to win by two strokes, finishing at 281 for the four rounds. Dublin's Luke Siefker and Kent's Liam Curtis tied for second at 283, with Curtis having held the lead entering the final day before Bellish closed it out. The win also punched Bellish's ticket to the U.S. Amateur, which is no small footnote for a 72-hole event at a public course. Closer to home, Zanesville's Blake Hartford finished tied for 19th, giving Muskingum County a name in the final leaderboard alongside players from Dublin, Mason, and Cincinnati.

None of that happens at a course that isn't already taken seriously. The Virtues, formerly known as Longaberger Golf Club and designed by Arthur Hills, is ranked Ohio's top public golf course and sits at 93rd nationally on Golf Digest's list of America's Greatest Public Courses for 2025-2026. That ranking is exactly why the Ohio Golf Association picked it, and exactly why the number of qualifiers willing to travel for a shot at playing it matters.

The Part Most Residents Skip Past

Here's the piece that tends to get lost once the leaderboard photos stop circulating. The same course that just hosted 105 of the state's best amateurs runs a Resident Card Program for a defined list of zip codes, and 43830, Nashport's own zip code, is on that list.

The card is complimentary to request, and it isn't a token discount. Cardholders pay $44 on weekdays and $54 on weekends when tee times are booked within 24 hours, get 10 percent off clubhouse food and non-alcoholic drinks, and get access to resident-only events and clinics throughout the season. That's the walking-up rate at a course that just proved, in front of the whole state, that it belongs in the same conversation as some of the best public tracks in the country. A golfer from Dublin or Cincinnati drove two or three hours and qualified through a sectional just to play it once. Someone living a few minutes from the first tee can play it regularly for less than the cost of a round of drinks and a meal at most sports bars.

The food discount is worth pausing on too, because it applies at the Overlook Restaurant inside the clubhouse, which keeps a short public schedule, open Thursday through Saturday. It's easy to assume a restaurant attached to a nationally ranked course is reserved for members or event guests. It isn't. It's open to anyone, it takes reservations, and it looks out over the same course the state's best amateurs were grinding through a few weeks ago.

Where the Everyday Eating Actually Happens

The Overlook is the clubhouse option, but it isn't where most Nashport routines start. That's more likely to be The Clover Key on Newark Road, a breakfast-and-burger spot that's built a 4.8-star reputation on Google reviews and earned a mention as a genuine local haunt in a recent Islands feature on the town. Between that and Nashport Grocery & Pizza, which functions as the everyday corner stop for a lot of households, the food side of daily life here has very little to do with golf at all. That's part of the point. A nationally ranked golf course and a handful of modest, well-loved local spots exist a few minutes apart, and it takes actually living here to know which is which and when each one is worth the drive.

The Lake's Last Wide-Open Stretch

Golf isn't the only reason Nashport punches above its size. Dillon State Park sits about seven minutes from the center of town and wraps around 1,560-acre Dillon Lake, one of the larger bodies of water in this part of the state. There's no entrance fee to get in, the lake allows unlimited horsepower boating alongside kayaks and paddleboards rented at the campground store, and the park layers in a disc golf course, an archery range, and the Storybook Trail, where pages from a children's book are posted along the hiking route for younger visitors. The Dillon Wildlife Area next door draws birders after bald eagles and great blue herons during migration.

Summer keeps the lake busy, which is exactly why the stretch from mid-August into early fall matters. As the peak boating traffic thins out, the water gets quieter without losing the warmth that makes it usable. It's a smaller window than most people plan around, but it's the one locals actually get to use without competing for a boat ramp or a picnic table.

There's a piece of local history tied into all of it that's easy to miss. The lake exists because of a dam project completed in the 1960s as part of flood control for the Muskingum and Ohio River basins, but the land itself traces back to Moses Dillon, who bought property along the river here in 1803. Dillon is the same name behind Zanesville's famous Y-Bridge, which he built decades later. It's a small detail, but it means the same family name tying together your local lake also built one of the most photographed bridges in the county seat.

What This Actually Adds Up To

A town this size doesn't often get a week like the one Nashport just had. A nationally ranked golf course, a field of 105 qualifiers pulled from six cities, and a winner who used the week to punch his ticket to the U.S. Amateur all landed here at once. But the story worth remembering isn't just that it happened. It's that the course behind all of it is still, right now, offering the people who live here a rate and a level of access that none of those 105 visiting golfers got. The lake is still open, the water is about to get quieter, and the restaurant that just watched a state championship come down to the final holes will seat you Thursday through Saturday without a tee time to your name.

Whether you're settling further into Nashport this fall or starting to think about what a house near all of this is actually worth, J Moore Realty Group knows this stretch of Muskingum County block by block. Get your free home valuation whenever you're ready to talk.