Bide-A-Wee Golf Course

Few municipal courses in Virginia carry as much history as Bide-A-Wee. Opened in 1937 and owned by the City of Portsmouth, it stands as one of the oldest public-access layouts in the Hampton Roads region, with a name borrowed from the Scottish phrase meaning roughly "stay a while" — an apt invitation for a course that has welcomed everyday golfers for nearly nine decades.

Portsmouth sits across the Elizabeth River from Norfolk, deep in the heart of Hampton Roads, where the land is flat, the air carries salt off the Chesapeake, and the warm, humid summers make for lush, heavy turf conditions that reward ball-strikers who work the ground game. The course plays through mature trees that have grown up over generations, giving it the shaded, unhurried feel of a classic American municipal — the kind of place where regulars have standing tee times and newcomers are made to feel at home quickly.

For locals, Bide-A-Wee fills the role that the best city courses always do: affordable, accessible, and genuinely enjoyable, a place where the game belongs to everyone.