There’s a monstrously large construction site about a mile from my house, different from the one I described two weeks ago. This one I know what it is. It’s called Topgolf, and quite frankly it defies all description and categorization. You can check it out here: http://topgolf.com/us/, or head to one of its 15 locations nationwide. (Ours is one of another 10 on the way.) Apparently this Topgolf is sweeping the nation, and it has taken up much of Virginia Route 7 between Dranesville and Lansdowne. Someday my little Hamlet will no longer be known as Sterling Park but as Topgolf South.

From the highway Topgolf looks like—I don’t know—an Olympic village, perhaps. Its website makes it look like Chuck E. Cheese for adults. Chuck E. Cheese with golf. It actually describes Loudoun County living to a tee (get it? Tee?). People who work all the time need a way to spend all that money quickly in one place and in a ridiculous manner. Check and checkmate.

The casualty in this scene is one Woody’s Golf Range, the driving range/batting cage/minigolf center a little further up Route 7 towards the wilds of D.C. Woody’s has been providing family entertainment in the area for the past 35 years (an eternity in these parts), since Loudoun County was a cow pasture and Fairfax was hardly any better. Woody’s is closing up shop at the end of this season, no doubt in part due to big money competition up the street.

I understand progress, I understand innovation, and I’m sure I’ll make it to Topgolf one of these days. But like everything else in this world, it just won’t be the same.

It just won’t be the same.