Just outside Luray, tucked along the side of a mountain, sits the small home where Alex White grew up. The house first served as a hunting cabin before being converted into a residence. It’s small, less than 800 square feet.
It was a quiet place to grow up, surrounded by woods and the rhythms of the Shenandoah Valley. Alex’s father worked as a mechanic and landscaper. His mother was a bank teller. Television reception was limited to one channel, Channel 3, so naturally, Alex read. A lot.
History interested him especially, and he spent plenty of time learning about the world beyond the mountain where he lived. Sometimes he stayed with his aunt in Luray, but the cabin remained the center of his childhood.
Neither of Alex’s parents attended college, but education and curiosity were always encouraged. “They’re both very intellectual people,” he says.
Golf arrived in Alex’s life during his freshman year at Luray High School. His mother gave him one instruction when it came to school activities: he had to play a sport.
“There was just one rule,” Alex says with a laugh. “It couldn’t be football.” He chose golf.
The game quickly became part of his routine. Alex joined the school team and began working at the local Caverns golf course near Luray. His jobs included washing carts, picking range balls, and helping at the snack bar.
Along the way, he met mentors who taught him the game, including local golf figure Putt Lancaster.
Alex was largely self-taught, but his time around the course helped him improve quickly, as did playing with his older brother; the two shared plenty of rounds together growing up.
Today, Alex typically scores in the mid-80s. He hasn’t broken 80 yet, but he plays regularly and still enjoys the challenge. The game also followed him into other parts of his life.
At Luray High School, Alex thrived in speech and debate under coach Gwen Birley. The experience helped build confidence and reinforced a belief that students from small communities could go toe-to-toe with anyone. “We learned we could compete with other schools and win,” he says. Alex eventually applied to sixteen colleges. When he learned around Christmas that he had been accepted to Harvard, the news came as a surprise. “I didn’t expect that,” he says. Upon graduating, he packed his bags for Cambridge, MA.
There, Alex majored in political science and continued playing golf, eventually becoming president of the Harvard Golf Club. The group included about forty members of all skill levels, and the club regularly organized scrambles and matches. One of their most frequent opponents was MIT. “They always beat us,” Alex says with a smile. “They had a ringer who also played college golf.”
During his senior year in Cambridge, Alex made another unexpected decision: at age 22, he ran for the Luray Town Council and was elected, becoming one of the youngest council members in Virginia. His approach to politics was largely nonpartisan, focusing on community issues and problem solving. “There’s a learning curve to government,” he says. “You can’t just swoop in.”
Still, he says the council was able to accomplish some monumental achievements during his term. After Harvard, Alex eventually stepped away from politics and continued his education at Yale Law School. Even there, golf remains part of his life; he recently organized a golf group for fellow law students and hopes the group will play regularly once the Yale course Alling Memorial reopens after a year-long renovation. Off the fairway, Alex enjoys studying the history of golf courses, especially those that no longer exist. In the Shenandoah Valley, he keeps a list of courses that have disappeared or were never completed, including the old Massanutten Caverns layout. Ask him where he hopes to be in ten years, and the answer is simple: he hopes to be in Virginia, close to family, helping people and giving back to the community that shaped him. From mountain town to Ivy League halls, Alex White’s path has taken him far, but it all started in a small hunting cabin just outside Luray.