Why aren't there better courses in Texas?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mike,

If we change the time frame to: 2000 to current date, how would Texas stack up ?

I think about Hidden Creek (2002), about 2 hours from NYC and an hour or so from Philadelphia,

An hour or two drive in the Northeast is considered a long drive, so what quality courses, within a one to two hour drive from the cities in Texas, would be considered really good to great ?

[Sam Morrow]

Barry, not to pick on you but what does most of that stuff have to do with the golf courses. Why do you keep going back to the stuff about UT and A&M? I agree with what Mike said and Mike will tell you that Baylor is the best school in Texas anyway.

[mike_beene]

Sam, of course.If they found a way to educate me they must be good. Pat, we are not a driving culture.Our two hours would include the Broadmoor, Sand Hills, Roaring Fork, Las Companos,Colorado Golf Club. Where you guys go to the Hamptons or the shore or whatever, the escape from here( and thus the second courses) are I'm cooler areas. Colorado, Santa Fe and San Diego to some degree .

[Lou_Duran]

People are people, politics get personal,ego gets in the way. Take Texas out of the paragraph and you are describing just about anywhere at any time. The grass looks greener on the other side and living somewhere else must be better. I think that is just human nature.

I live 10 to 15 miles from where Mr. Samuels works and it might as well be 15,000 miles.  I immigrated here from Ohio back in the days when the Cuyahoga River would catch on fire.  The Texas he describes I just don't recognize.  Amazing how stupid people are to reloate here in droves.  I wonder how many of the smart folks will pop Toyota the finger and stay in the socialist utopia known as California when the company begins moving many of its operations to that hell-hole known as Plano later this year.

It is funny, Barry's lamentation reminds me so much of my freshman year at Ohio State where it seemed that half of my dorm was from NY and NJ.  Many of them bitched and moaned incessantly about what a cowtown Columbus was (can't imagine their anguish had they gone to TCU in Fort Worth instead!).  The "locals" put up with their inexplicable "superiority" complex, puzzled that as much as they said they hated the place, they never left.  With all the "great" colleges and universities up there, we wondered why such superior beings would suffer such indignations willingly.

As to the stats the liberals from the sclerotic blue states like to impugn Texas with (high # uninsured, low graduation rates, poor paying jobs), try taking into account the 1,200+ miles of border we share with that job growth engine called Mexico and that the state, thanks to the federal government refusing to enforce the immigration laws on the books, has by default become the pressure valve for much that ails Central and South America.  I can imagine MA or NY sharing a border with Mexico just how good their stats would be.  Yet, despite being such models of progressive enlightenment, why do they continue to shed jobs?  They do have some "great" golf courses, the vast majority who were built 70, 80, 90 years ago.  Anything wrong with that picture?  What have they done lately?

Pat Mucci,

I think very highly of Whispering Pines, Boot Ranch, Cordillera Ranch, and Escondido.  All are modern courses located 45 minutes  or more from major population centers.

Mike Beene,

You know I was kidding about you being soft, right?  I am a Type II myself, but medication is how I am controlling it as walking here in the summer would be asking for a quick death by heat stroke.  Incidentally, the last time I had a bout of heat stroke was at Preston Trail a few summers back.  Playing with a local architect who said he enjoyed walking but always carted, I suggested that the three of us (with his associate) hoof it.  I got to the 12th hole and they had to call for a cart to come and get me.  I am still getting crap for it. 

[BCowan]

great post Lou!

[mike_beene]

Lou, you know I know tongue was in cheek...! I probably am soft though. I refuse to even change light bulbs. That seems like labor.

[Sam Morrow]

What does any of this have to do with the courses though?

[Jeff_Brauer]

Sam,

As I read it, we generally agree that some combo of weather, topo, development timing and culture have made Texas Golf what it is.  I do agree that broad brush political observations about the culture probably don't tell the story, but its out there somehow.

[Lou_Duran]

Lou Duran,

Please, may I ask, why, when legitimate issues are raised, legitimate questions asked, do you resort to over-heated useless hyperbole?  I came to Texas because I wanted to, stay because I want to.  That  "hell hole" Plano is home to myself and my family and has been for 19 years.  I am not interested in socialism or liberalism, just solutions to the real problems that plague this state.  The people that run this state ignore most of those problems to the detriment of ALL Texans....

Come on Barry.  Would you have the folks here believe that your interests are solely driven by your non-partisan pursuit of "solutions" to problems ignored by the (Republicans) "people that run this state"?  You interjected your view of what ails Texas which very closely tracks with the Left's assault on the state.  Mine, an alternative perspective which you label "over-heated useless hyperbole", would have been much stronger had it come from a Texas-born "crap kicker" you might have met in Austin years ago or from an Oakie not taking kindly to your very unusual tangential attack on one of their own.

How your assertions explain why we don't have a Cypress Point in the state is beyond my comprehension, unless you are positing that a broadly, highly educated, well-paid population is a prerequisite for the creation of "great" golf courses.  If you were indeed interested in raising "legitimate" issues as opposed to tearing Texas down to size, you may wish to explore the historical record at the time the "great" courses were conceived in the northeast and the coastal cities of CA and report to us on the economic well-being and educational achievement of the masses.  I think that you would find that wealth was indeed highly concentrated and that the average Joe had it worse than many of Texas's current undocumented workers.  Of course, I could be wrong.

Oh, BTW, I think Plano is a great city.  It has fantastic schools, an excellent, well-paid employment base.  Yet, why doesn't it offer anything better than Gleneagles?

A funny thing happened yesterday at my son's place.  His mother-in-law, a lovely woman from NY/NJ, was going on and on about how rude Dallas drivers were (apparently she was in the wrong lane to make a turn and found it inexcusable that fast moving traffic didn't come to a stop so she wouldn't have to drive to the next block and swing back around) .  Having driven often in NYC and parts of urban NJ, I damned near lost it.  It is so damned hard to overcome our upbringing, our very personal biases.    

[Jeff_Brauer]

Lou,

Hey, Plano has Ridgeview Ranch!

LOL on the traffic.  When I got here, I though DFW drivers were rude and fast.  (To this day, I still don't understand the habit of pulling HALF WAY off the road to let others pass.....half a lane ain't enough for me.  That said, my first secretary's daughter went to Chicago for college, and she related similar stories about Chicago drivers.  Traffic is traffic.  Texas may have the concealed carry law, but Chicago certainly has more drive by shootings.......

[Sam Morrow]

Lou,

Hey, Plano has Ridgeview Ranch!

LOL on the traffic.  When I got here, I though DFW drivers were rude and fast.  (To this day, I still don't understand the habit of pulling HALF WAY off the road to let others pass.....half a lane ain't enough for me.  That said, my first secretary's daughter went to Chicago for college, and she related similar stories about Chicago drivers.  Traffic is traffic.  Texas may have the concealed carry law, but Chicago certainly has more drive by shootings.......

A legally armed society is a polite society.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Sam, of course.If they found a way to educate me they must be good. Pat, we are not a driving culture.Our two hours would include the Broadmoor, Sand Hills, Roaring Fork, Las Companos,Colorado Golf Club. Where you guys go to the Hamptons or the shore or whatever, the escape from here( and thus the second courses) are I'm cooler areas. Colorado, Santa Fe and San Diego to some degree .

Mike,

That's not "local" golf, that requires driving to the airport and taking a long flight to a destination.

I was referencing courses that service the local or regional population.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Pat Mucci,

I think very highly of Whispering Pines, Boot Ranch, Cordillera Ranch, and Escondido. 
All are modern courses located 45 minutes  or more from major population centers.

Lou,

I appreciate that, but, what do others think ?
What's the consensus ?
And, what's the consensus from non-local/regional golfers.

One of my issues with the magazine ratings is the inherent conflict created by their structure and process.
You can't ask a panelist who lives in California to rate a course in Virginia and vice versa,
so, the rating process tends to be localized, and with that comes a local, regional and state bias.

A good number of golfers, far removed from Southern New Jersey, have played Hidden Creek.
The high praise for the course seems to be universal.
So, my question would be, where are the "Hidden Creeks" of Texas ?

You also have to ask, where are the Kenny Bakst's, Mike Pascucci's and Roger Hansen's of Texas.
Local guys who love golf who invested in and created good to great golf courses in their backyards.

I'm pretty sure that the cities in Texas have an amply supply of well to do men who love golf.
I'm sure that a good number of them belong to ANGC, PV, Seminole, CPC and other iconic clubs.

So, why the paucity of good to great courses in Texas ?

And, if a great course was built in Texas tomorrow, do you think it would trigger the building of more good to great courses ?

[mike_beene]

Pat, I am the wrong person to ask about golf a few hours away. In my 54 years, I have been fortunate to play a lot of places, but I have never played in San Antonio, Houston, Austin or surrounding areas other than Whispering Pines, Horseshoe Bay, the Possum Kingdom course and Dornick Hills and Oak Tree. I don't think I am alone from this area in thinking why not jump on a plane and get out of the heat. Thus when I go to play golf it is to the Broadmoor, Carolina, LA, or overseas. The winters are good here but you can't count on them so Hawaii gets my winter play.In August you have to go farther if you don't want 100 degrees.I think this is the reason people have not poured money into resorts or second clubs with a few exceptions. If you build it you may find they don't come but are on a cheap flight to the mountains or coast.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Mike,

It'll be interesting to see how Streamsong fares in the summer.

Surely, the heat in Bowling Green, Florida, along with the humidity, is the equal of that in Texas.

[Bill_McBride]

Mike,

It'll be interesting to see how Streamsong fares in the summer.

Surely, the heat in Bowling Green, Florida, along with the humidity, is the equal of that in Texas.

I lived in Dallas for three years including three of the hottest summers I have ever seen.

Even at Streamsong you will seldom see a high above 92 or 93.  With the humidity that's miserable enough for anybody.   

In Dallas we saw summer temperatures above 100* for weeks at a time! and humidity well above what you would find in Colorado or other Western destinations.   Streamsong would be tolerable in a cart when Dallas is out of the question. 

[Andy Troeger]

Mike

Your last post makes me think this is a "chicken or the egg" type question. Texans flock in droves to the mountains of New Mexico in the summer months--its not cool here but I'm sure 85-95 degrees feels great by comparison. Do golfers leave the state for golf because their own courses don't match up, or do developers avoid building great courses because the business model wouldn't work because of the weather?

I don't know the answer to that question--just came to mind after reading your post. The golf courses here, other than Black Mesa, and Paa-Ko, aren't anything great on a national scale, so your point about just wanting to escape the heat (and find some nice scenery) is probably very accurate for most.

[Sven Nilsen]

How does Maxwell's Mount Pleasant stack up? 

It, like Prairie Dunes and Southern Hills, was a WPA project.

[Lou_Duran]

Pat Mucci,

I think very highly of Whispering Pines, Boot Ranch, Cordillera Ranch, and Escondido. 
All are modern courses located 45 minutes  or more from major population centers.

Lou,

I appreciate that, but, what do others think ?
What's the consensus ?
And, what's the consensus from non-local/regional golfers.

One of my issues with the magazine ratings is the inherent conflict created by their structure and process.
You can't ask a panelist who lives in California to rate a course in Virginia and vice versa,
so, the rating process tends to be localized, and with that comes a local, regional and state bias.

A good number of golfers, far removed from Southern New Jersey, have played Hidden Creek.
The high praise for the course seems to be universal.
So, my question would be, where are the "Hidden Creeks" of Texas ?

You also have to ask, where are the Kenny Bakst's, Mike Pascucci's and Roger Hansen's of Texas.
Local guys who love golf who invested in and created good to great golf courses in their backyards.

I'm pretty sure that the cities in Texas have an amply supply of well to do men who love golf.
I'm sure that a good number of them belong to ANGC, PV, Seminole, CPC and other iconic clubs.

So, why the paucity of good to great courses in Texas ?

And, if a great course was built in Texas tomorrow, do you think it would trigger the building of more good to great courses ?

I categorically reject your assertion that there is a paucity of "good to great courses in Texas".  If you want to define "great' as in GD's top 30, I might agree that the state lacks an entry in that rarefied air.  The courses I noted are all outstanding in my book.

I've already opined that climate, terrain, soils, and the relatively late arrival to the scene (after the "Golden Age" had passed) account in large part for the low regard that the gca cognoscenti have for Texas golf.  Further, I believe that there are strong "old is great" and regional biases, as well as issues related to ambiance, exclusivity, club culture, etc. that play into our perceptions and weigh against Texas golf.

I hope to play Friar's Head, Sebonack, and Hidden Creek some day so I can compare them to our best courses.  I'd like to think we have men cut of similar cloth here in Texas.  I suspect that John McDonald was one and the folks involved with the AT&T course are probably of comparable caliber.  We'll see if C & C are able to crack the glass ceiling and other courses and designers are able to get their due.  

Bill McBride,

We play golf in Texas year around.  I like July and August in particular because many of the courses in the mid-afterrnoon are nearly empty.  In a cart with lots of liquids, it is very enjoyable.  And after the sun starts going down, it can be outright comfortable.

Jeff Brauer,

The bones of Ridgeview Ranch are very good.  A shame that in such a good market, management has adopted a high volume-low maintenance business plan.  I haven't played it for more than a year.  Your excellent bunkering has been decimated by poor maintenance and removal.  It is as good as a number of the private clubs in the Metroplex.  I was thinking the other day about Jeff Silverstein and how things have changed since RR was developed.  The folks in Allen aren't too happy with what's transpired at Twin Creeks.

Sam,

In my 35+ years in TX, I've yet to see or hear any gun play.  Not the case in Detroit and NYC where many years ago one could hear the occasional gun shot in the distance without much reaction from those around you.

Mike Beene,

Try booking a room at Barton Creek, Marble Falls, or in San Antonio at a golf resort for Memorial Day weekend.  Texas is becoming a regional golf tourist attraction.   Cowboys with its high price has a full tee sheet quite often largely due to its association with the Gaylord resort.  

[Jim Hoak]

Lou--I also hope you can play Friar's Head, Sebonack and Hidden Creek some day.  Those seem to me to prove my point--to the extent I had one.  I think they are far superior to any course we have in Texas--unfortunately so in my opinion.  Also true that Sand Hills, Bandon and Whistling Straits are better than our courses.  Maybe also true of Streamsong, which I have not played.
I think the discussion on here, about reasons why the top classic National courses are seen as better than our Texas courses, has been good and answers my question.  But I don't know why none of the better recognized modern courses are in Texas, given the ascent that Texas is on in so many other ways.  Maybe it will soon be our turn.  I hope Trinity Forest is it!

[Patrick_Mucci]

So that we can dispel the myth about the weather in Dallas, here are the monthly average high and low temperatures, along with those of Streamsong (Bowling Green, FL).  I would suspect that the humidity is higher in Florida but will research that info.

        Bowling Green       Dallas

Jan    74° F 49°F           57*F 37*F 
Feb    77° F 51°F           61*F 41*F
Mar    80° F 55°F           69*F 49*F
Apr    85° F 59°F           77*F 56*F
May    90° F 65°F          84*F 65*F
Jun    93° F 72°F          92*F 73*F
Jul     93°  F 73°F         96*F 77*F
Aug   94°F 74°F           96*F 77*F
Sep   92°F 73°F            89*F 69*F
Oct   87*F 66*F            79*F 58*F
Nov   81*F 58*F            67*F 48*F
Dec   76*F 52*F            58*F 39*F

[mike_beene]

Pat, I look forward to Streamsong but not in the summer. Andy, some of my favorite days have been on the Santa Fe CC years ago when we used Santa Fe as our escape. It is not a great course but the cool weather and open country were great. We have gravitated to Colorado and Hawaii for the summer trips now. Lou, 96 degrees is the point I go to a cart. I agree it is dangerous and you were lucky at Preston Trail to not have gone to see if the preacher is right. I just have no desire to go to Barton Creek and be hearded into a cart. That has frankly soured me on Hawaii.

I think one more comparison problem is for me I will make a trip to play a top place but don't want to take a chance on an unknown.I have some generous friends who have been kind enough to have me and stupid enough to invite me back to places I only dreamed of as a kid. Human nature makes me less inclined to want to play the muny when the respected course is welcoming. I will leave the judgment of that to others but I am fine with it. As a group we appear to be some of the luckiest people in the world. Not many people get to spend time on something they enjoy.

[DMoriarty]

The topic question reminds me of the old adage, popular in New Mexico and Colorado, about why there are no quality ski areas in Texas.  

But I've neither golfed nor skied in Texas, so I couldn't say.

[mike_beene]

Pat, the Dallas Olympic Committee will use those same stats to attempt to lure the 2020 games. If they succeed and if the 110 degree side of the average sits on the games they will understand that some days in the 80s do not cancel the heat stroke received on the 100s days.

[Mike Nuzzo]

Jim
The first three you list are far from superior to any course in Texas.
I like my favorite somewhere in the middle of those.
Mike