This 180-acre golf course is the third home for Austin Country Club since its founding in 1899. Designed by Pete Dye, whom Golfweek Magazine named one of the top architects in the world, the course has been characterized as a “complex and guileful challenge”.
With its deep pot bunkers, undulating turf, and dramatic 18th hole fairway fall, the course is reminiscent of those Scottish classics Royal Dornoch and Gullane Hill. A Texas accent is added by extensive use of massive limestone slabs, quarried on site, to build revetments for tees, greens and fairways.
Like the land where the game was born, this course has its “lowlands” and “highlands”. Holes three through seven, nearest the lake, are the lowlands. The rest of the course is higher and more typical of the Texas Hill Country. The course embodies the principle of playing to restricted targets. Indiscriminate play simply to the close-mown area of the fairway will only by accident provide the comfortable approach. Similarly, a good birdie chance or an easy two-putt is unlikely unless the approach is precise enough to end on a particular part of the green. Yet aggressive play to the most desired targets often crowds the course’s amply-provided hazards. Players enjoy a truly unique golfing experience.
