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Hi All,

I hope this topic hasn't come up yet. I'm from Cincinnati but will be traveling to Houston for some training. While there, I want to get 18 in at one of the courses. With this large group, I was hoping to get some recommendations on a course to play there. Unfortunately, I am not 100% certain where the hotel will be so it will depend on distance but I think we will be either downtown or on the north side of town. I have read some good things about Redstone and Tour 18 but any recommendations would be helpful.

Thanks,
TJ

Depending where you are it can be quite a hike from one side of town to the other. Tour 18 is nice. This time of year most courses will be in pretty nice shape down here. We've been getting a decent amount of rain.

I guess you can play one of the Redstone courses but I think one is private.

Cypresswood is on the north side of town (near the airport) and has 3 courses. They are all okay if you ask me but the 'Tradition' course is touted as one of the nicer courses around. It makes 'best of' lists pretty regularly.

Cypresswood Golf Club

On the west side of town is Bear Creek and they have the 'Masters' course which is supposed to be nice. I hate Bear Creek in general so I've never played there. It's always packed and backed up when I've played there.

If you're a CCA member or have reciprocal privileges at country clubs there's several more options.

I tend to play courses that are close by and play one called Windrose and I enjoy it but if I was a tourist coming in I wouldn't put it on my list.

If you are 'in town' (as opposed to being on the north side) check into playing Memorial. Memorial was the local hangout back in the day for guys like Jackie Burke and Jimmy Demaret who went on to open Champion Golf Club. Some good history, a highly rated course and reasonably easy to get to if you are downtown or in the 'galleria area'.

Municipal Golf Courses

Blackhorse is another good choice for the north side of town. The South Course is arguably one of the best courses in Houston. I also agree with Cypresswood Traditions if it's not too far north. If you are just playing one round, I would say that Cypresswood Traditions, Redstone, or Blackhorse would be good. Tour 18 is a neat course, but it's usually busy and not always in that great of condition. Also, if you happen to go to the Woodlands, Augusta Pines is nice (or so I've heard...it's where they had the Administaff Classic).

I was thinking about this thread the other day and happened to be driving home which takes my past Blackhorse and had meant to log on and add it to the list. 2 courses there and both are nice. I have never played Augusta Pines but have been past it and it looks great so you probably wouldn't go wrong there.

I'll give a review of Augusta Pines after I play there Thursday. My dad is getting free from a company he does business with and I'm going with him.

Okay I played Augusta Pines today. It is probably one of the nicest courses I've ever played. They aerated the greens about a week ago it looked like, but they still rolled fast and true. I can't imagine what they'll be like in another week. The golf course is beautiful and we maintained. It's difficult, but the rough wasn't too long and it's possible to shoot a good score out there. All in all I would recommend it. I like Cypresswood Traditions a little better, though.

Thanks everyone. These courses look awesome. I will be down there in mid June and will play on the 11th. Looking forward to playing one of those great courses.

i'm heading to Houston on friday w/ a few guys. We're going to play Tour 18, and i was wondering what your thoughts were on the course. Is it all that it's cracked up to be??? I know the idea behind the course is great, but i wasn't sure if it actually lived up to that goal.

Hey mid70s,

Did you play Tour 18? How was it?

Thanks,
Tim

yeah, i loved it.........played absolutely horrible, (see my thread "My Round Today") but the course was in great shape........they had one green that needed some work, not sure what had happened to it, but the rest of the golf course was excellent.......very pretty course.......now i haven't played any of the actual holes, so i have no idea on how close they came to replicating them, but from the pictures i have seen, it looked pretty good............if anything, it would be that the greens seemed to be a lot smaller at Tour 18 than the real holes........i would definitely recommend playing it

Well, the trip has finally come. I am playing Blackhorse South tomorrow and Tour 18 on Tuesday. Looks like it is going to be some hot rounds but I am looking forward to it. When I get back, I'll give a review of each course. Thanks to everyone for the recommendations.

Well, I'm back from my trip to Houston. One thing I have to say is that it is HOT down there. It was good to get back home to the milder conditions. I played Monday at 1:00 p.m. and was burning up all afternoon.

So I said I would give my review of my experience for each course so here goes.

June 11 - Blackhorse North course
As you can see in my previous post, I was supposed to play Blackhorse South. When I got there on Monday, there was a Collegiate tour there. I got in and paid and asked to confirm we were still on the South course. They said that we were scheduled to play the North. I had specifically requested the South course and the person I talked initially to also recommended the South course because of the Aeration that was being done (South course was done a few weeks ago and North course was going to be done the week before I got there). I mentioned that we were scheduled to play the South and he says that the course knew for a few weeks that the tour was going to be playing the South and that there must have been a misunderstanding and nothing that could be done. To “apologize”, he gave me a couple buy one get one free cards for the course. Since I don’t live in Houston and will most likely never visit again, that really was a meaningless token. Since we were kind of stuck, we paid our $75 and decided to play the North course. The guy at the register said that the North course greens were in pretty good shape.

That was not true at all. When I got to the first green, I became even more frustrated. The greens were horrific. They did not roll true at all and it didn’t feel like they had even been rolled. Some of the worst greens I have ever putted on. The rest of the course was in decent shape, but by that time I could not enjoy myself and so the course, and staff, has left a bad taste in my mouth. I felt like we just got bumped to the North course because the tour got pulled off of Redstone at the last minute and the course tried to cover it up and did not even do anything realistic to make us feel better for being bumped.

As “luck” would have it, on my flight home I sat next to a guy who mentioned that his sister played on the collegiate tour and she was not informed that the course was changed from Redstone to Blackhorse until the weekend before (June 9/10). Based on that info, it makes me think that we were scheduled to be on the South course but got bumped to the North when the tour came calling. I don’t know if that is true or not, but that is the perception. I did send an e-mail to the course manager asking for some clarification.

This very well may have been a unique occurence, but based on my experience I don't recommend Blackhorse.

Course - 6 / 10 - Not a real interesting layout. Fairways and rough in good shape.
Greens - 0 / 10 - Complete luck outside of 2 feet due to recent aeration and poor rolling to smooth
Staff - 4 / 10 - Felt lied to.
Concessions - No feedback. Did not stop.

June 12 - Tour 18 Review

On Tuesday morning, we had a 7:00 a.m. tee time at Tour 18. As poor of an experience I had at Blackhorse, I had a great experience at Tour 18. The course is a unique layout with the replica of different holes on the PGA Tour. The course was in fantastic shape. They had aerated a couple greens earlier that morning and yet somehow they still rolled true and fast. Great Job! To me, it is a great course when you can just stand at the tee and look out and admire the hole. I did that several times. I truly enjoyed my experience. Playing #3 of Oakmont, Amen Corner from Augusta, #17 of TPC Sawgrass was very cool since I will most likely never play the real thing. They did a good job replicating the overall look and feel of the holes. I think the greens were probably small comparably and you don't get some of the elevation changes due to the natural lay of the land.

All this and only $35. Well worth it and I would highly recommend it to anyone playing in Houston.

Course - 9/10 - One of the best conditions / layouts I have played
Greens - 9/10 - Fast, smooth, and true
Staff - 8/10 - Starter was late the day we got there. Computers were down so they had to do carbon copy payment. I wanted a yardage book. They let me take one and asked that I just pay for it after the round. I really appreciated that.
Concessions - Did not stop for concessions.

Overall, a great course and very enjoyable to play.

I used to play tour 18 as it is only 15 minutes from my house but the staff were rude. I went to play there the week before I got married and the guy at the counter was rude and didnt care to even look at me. He couldnt swipe my card (I guess the sipe was bad) so he told me I would have to pay cash! I was ******. He also failed to tell me there was a tournament that just started one housr before my round. It took us 5 1/2 hours to play a round. I will never go back