[Bill_McBride]

I spent last week in Austin, Texas, staying at Barton Creek with friends.    Austin is a great town, with excellent Tex-Mex food, live music everywhere, and some good golf courses.

This trip I had the good fortune to play a round at Austin Golf Club, the Crenshaw & Coore design built in 2000.  The club is located about 15 miles west of downtown Austin in rolling Texas hill country, with a lot of oak trees and scrub.  The course uses the terrain very well and has two steeply elevated greens at #6 and #18.  All of the bunkering is strong in the C&C style, deep and tight to the greens.  The course is big and built on a lot of acres.  There were no two holes in the same direction and always 60 to 100 yards between adjoining fairways.

Like Cuscowilla, another C&C favorite, the challenge is primarily in the greens as long as one plays the appropriate tees.  Most of the greens are elevated with deep bunkers cut into the surfaces.  This is one of those courses where you can score better if you are consistently around the front of the greens and reasonably straight.  Everyone in our group had several occasions where shots that finished hole high but off to one side or the other resulted in chips, pitches or putts that went over the green into a bunker on the other side.  The pressures on the players’ short games are relentless and never ending!

There’s plenty of width, the course is fast and firm, beautifully maintained, the primary challenge is in the greens!

I also played my favorite Barton Creek course, the Crenshaw Cliffside course designed by C&C in the early 1990’s, and once again loved the layout there.  Where most of the greens at Austin Golf Club sloped from back to front and were built up with some frightening false fronts, at Barton Creek the greens are draped over the terrain, with fully 13 of 18 greens sloping from front to back!  Again the primary challenge is in the greens and how you handle the short game challenges.

I am a big fan of C&C courses, and Austin Golf Club did nothing to change my mind.  Many thanks to our host for an excellent day.

[K. Krahenbuhl]

You hit the nail on the head Bill.  AGC is one of my favorite places in the world in a great town.

[Bill_McBride]

You hit the nail on the head Bill.  AGC is one of my favorite places in the world in a great town.

Kyle, have you played the Crenshaw course at Barton Creek?

It's funny, most there prefer to play the Fazio courses over the Crenshaw, showing again how GolfClubAtlas wingnuts just really don't get golf course design.     We played the Fazio Foothills couirse the day afrer AGC.  I had forgotten what a manufactured mess that course is.  I think it was ranked near the top of Texas courses.  The Crenshaw is delightfully natural.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Bill, I think the greens at Friar's Head and Hidden Creek present wonderful challenges, challenges that test your skills, yet are fun to encounter and conquer, if you can.

[Bill_McBride]

Bill, I think the greens at Friar's Head and Hidden Creek present wonderful challenges, challenges that test your skills, yet are fun to encounter and conquer, if you can.

It's the same at Bandon Trails and Cuscowilla (and agreed on Friars Head); I think the greens are the one constant theme of C&C designs, although how they do it can vary from site to site.

[Michael J. Moss]

I've heard from one of my myriad unreliable sources that the Austin golf Club is not a Coore, Crenshaw design, but a Crenshaw course without Bill Coore. In other words a Ben Crenshaw solo design.

Is that possible, or is my source, as usual, wrong?

[Kevin Pallier]

Bill, I think the greens at Friar's Head and Hidden Creek present wonderful challenges, challenges that test your skills, yet are fun to encounter and conquer, if you can.

Agree wholeheartedly Patrick.

I've seen four C&C designs on my trip and love the way they don't overcomplicate things with huge ridges or mounds. They usually have wide entrances and lovely fallaways to chipping areas.

They test your imagination more than anything else.

[Jaeger Kovich]

Bold... #4, 7 and 10 at Friars are all in my top 10 holes that I have seen. Does anyone know what the greens stimp on a normal sunday at Friars? I remember it to be fast, but perhaps it was because of the contour?


What do people think about East Hampton? I have talked with a number of members and they seem to have mixed opinions. Lots of positive, but they find something to complain about too... bad 18th hole, trees, to hard?

[K. Krahenbuhl]

You hit the nail on the head Bill.  AGC is one of my favorite places in the world in a great town.

Kyle, have you played the Crenshaw course at Barton Creek?

It's funny, most there prefer to play the Fazio courses over the Crenshaw, showing again how GolfClubAtlas wingnuts just really don't get golf course design.     We played the Fazio Foothills couirse the day afrer AGC.  I had forgotten what a manufactured mess that course is.  I think it was ranked near the top of Texas courses.  The Crenshaw is delightfully natural.

Bill,
I actually haven't played any of the BC courses yet.  Hopefully I'll get the chance next year.  Give me a shout the next time you are over this way for another visit.

[Bill_McBride]

You hit the nail on the head Bill.  AGC is one of my favorite places in the world in a great town.

Kyle, have you played the Crenshaw course at Barton Creek?

It's funny, most there prefer to play the Fazio courses over the Crenshaw, showing again how GolfClubAtlas wingnuts just really don't get golf course design.     We played the Fazio Foothills couirse the day afrer AGC.  I had forgotten what a manufactured mess that course is.  I think it was ranked near the top of Texas courses.  The Crenshaw is delightfully natural.

Bill,
I actually haven't played any of the BC courses yet.  Hopefully I'll get the chance next year.  Give me a shout the next time you are over this way for another visit.

Austin next year, Houston sooner i'm sure.

[Tom_Doak]

I've heard from one of my myriad unreliable sources that the Austin golf Club is not a Coore, Crenshaw design, but a Crenshaw course without Bill Coore. In other words a Ben Crenshaw solo design.

Is that possible, or is my source, as usual, wrong?

Michael:

Not entirely correct, but Bill did tell me that he let Ben make pretty much all of the final decisions about the holes at Austin GC, knowing that he would spend so much time around it whenever he's home.  So, it is probably the closest course to a solo design for Ben; but Ben would not take sole credit for it.

[Sam Morrow]

Bill,

 Fazio Foothills is good but I agree that it's not as good as Crenshaw Cliffside. Take 8 on Fazio, it's a par 5 where I don't know if Fazio's goal was to have a good hole or a botanical garden. Of course it is still better than his work at Contraband Bayou in Lake Charles, that course was so bad that desite staying on property the last 2 days I had no desire to play it.

[Bill_McBride]

Bill,

 Fazio Foothills is good but I agree that it's not as good as Crenshaw Cliffside. Take 8 on Fazio, it's a par 5 where I don't know if Fazio's goal was to have a good hole or a botanical garden. Of course it is still better than his work at Contraband Bayou in Lake Charles, that course was so bad that desite staying on property the last 2 days I had no desire to play it.

Sam, #8 is a good example of what a mish mash Fazio Foothills is.  It's just too restricted in width and landing areas.  Luckily the drainage design is so bad that balls don't run of room, then it would truly be a nightmare!

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