If you and your golfing cronies are looking to get away from your favorite courses in the Richmond area, carpool to Fredericksburg for a day trip.

Civil War battlefields were Fredericksburg's drawing card for many, many years. That began to change in the early 1990s when Augustine Golf Club in Stafford established the standard for "a country club for a day experience" for public course golfers.

The upscale approach, usually meaning green fees of more than $75, demanded a quality course (good condition, good greens) and amenities. Augustine, designed by Rick Jacobson, delivered.

These days, you can play Augustine for less than $75. The layout is tried, true and mature. It is one of the best in Virginia.

Jacobson likes putting the pressure on early. The opening three holes on each nine are among the course's most challenging. The first hole has a split fairway. No. 2, played over and along a lake to a large green with plenty of undulation, is perhaps the toughest second hole in the state.

If you want a course that's big and brawny and has a Civil War motif throughout, Cannon Ridge Golf Club is the place.

Former PGA Tour commissioner Deane Beman and Bobby Weed designed the course. The greens are big, the fairways spacious and the trouble plentiful. Civil War historical markers on several holes tell of the Union forces' winter campground on the bluffs above the Rappahannock River in 1862-63. The fee range is $49 to $69.

If you want quirky with a challenge, Meadows Farms in Locust Grove, west of Fredericksburg, is the place to be.

Meadows Farms is the least expensive of the three and offers some gimmicky holes, but the three nines will test any player's skill. Meadows Farms is home to a par-6, 841-yard (nearly a half mile long), a par-3 on which you hit over a waterfall and another par-3 set up like a baseball diamond. This is one fun place to play golf for under $50.

The three courses, along with other area tracks, The Gauntlet and Lee's Hill, are VSGA VIP Card participants. Cannon Ridge plays host to a VSGA one-day event April 17. Augustine has a one-day in July.