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Greetings from Austin
The Blue Dot with Great Greens
 Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book collaborator Edwin “Bud” Shrake once said that he thought Austin had lost a little something each year for about the last 30. The novelist, now in his 70s, smiled wryly when asked about the remark. “Yeah,” he said, “but I’m still here.” Therein lies the essence of Austin laissez-faire, of life—and golf—in “the little blue dot in the big red state,” as beloved resident politico Molly Ivins put it, a town where the pervading philosophy can be summed up by a bumper sticker admonishment: “What’s your hurry, you’re already in Austin.” The surrounding landscape is no less eclectic. “This doesn’t look like Texas,” is invariably a visitor’s first impression. True enough. Austin has hills, swimming holes and trees: gnarly, majestic oaks, towering pecans, mesquite, cedar, elm, ash, cottonwood—in a variety of sylvan settings from lush parkland to sun-splattered lakes to wind-swept plains. In short, Austin is a microcosm of Texas’s more appealing environs.
Austin likes to entertain. Live music is so tightly woven into the city’s fabric that it will be hard to avoid. South by Southwest and Austin City Limits Music Fest anchor the spring and summer calendars. SX (“South by,” for cognoscenti) has morphed into successful film and interactive conferences. Austin is also an exceptional eating town, revered deservedly for BBQ and Tex Mex. The twin cornices of state government and the University of Texas largely shield Austin from the vagaries of boom and bust. The local economy has taken some hits, particularly in high tech, but I’m not sure you’d notice. Vespaio, an exceptional Italian restaurant on South Congress Avenue, was in a former life a down-market Western wear store. Such gentrification typifies Austin’s transformation. There are destinations wherein golf is the main—and perhaps even the sole—attraction. And there are desirable places to go with many diversions, playing golf among them. Austin personifies the latter. It’s rare beyond the state’s borders to find someone who seriously thinks of Texas golf in the same light as more established draws. But let the record reflect that Austin has provided six Masters Winners with appealing natural palates for creative expression.
One of the most creative was Jimmy Demaret, whose venerable Onion Creek Club, where the Senior PGA Tour was born, is representative of a gentler substratum of local golf topography. “God put it there,” Demaret said, with Texas modesty. “All I did was manicure it.”
The geezers still come. We’re hanging on to a Champion’s Tour event out at The Hills of Lakeway, an early 1980s Nicklaus design that some said didn’t seem like a Nicklaus course, a backhanded compliment to a beguiling course that has aged gracefully.
Lion’s Municipal—now established as the first course to integrate in the South (1951)—is tight and short. An old city champion, describing playing conditions back in the day, liked to say that if your ball left the fairway, “you didn’t so much go in as back in.” The woods, as Penick noted, are full of long hitters…and other things! That said, in two decades of wayward driving, this Yankee transplant has never seen anything more slithery than a sandbagger.
Two less familiar architectural names in play: Bechtol/Russell. The Austin-based design team’s collaborations, both public (Shadowglen, Roy Kizer, Star Ranch) and private (UT Golf Club, with its burnt orange golf carts) have more than held their own in statewide course rating/beauty pageants.
An early, semi-private Jay Morrish solo design, Grey Rock Golf Club, has hosted sectional U.S. Open qualifying. Located southwest of town, Grey Rock is next to the National Wildflower Center, the pride of Ladybird Johnson. LBJ’s golf was not distinguished, but he left a monumental local bequest: A series of large man-made lakes are part of the young senator’s legacy in lobbying Franklin Roosevelt on behalf of rural electricity. Increasingly rimmed by upscale residential and resort outcroppings, the area has proved a magnet for golf development. To the west, a coterie of PGA Tour players—including Rich Beem and Joe Ogilvie—make camp around a strong Bobby Weed course at Spanish Oaks. There’s also Escondido (Fazio) and a new Marriott, part of the Horseshoe Bay resort with its three Robert Trent Jones Sr. courses, yacht club and marina. Not to be outdone by the other Big 12 schools, the University of Texas golf teams now have their own enclave out by Lake Travis, shared with members. There’s also the rarified Austin Golf Club, home to Ben Crenshaw and friends.
To the north, Cimarron Hills (Nicklaus Signature) continues up the “best-in-state” charts. Recently retired big leaguer Jeff Kent moved back to Lakecliff, a remote private Palmer course, though not nearly as far from town as it once seemed. All are newish with a relaxed vibe complete with range balls you might otherwise put in your pocket, the sort of places where tee times are considered déclassé, and the sous chef’s outdoor spread is never less than sumptuous.
To the east is the even newer Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort and Spa. Set amidst hundreds of acres of back woods, 20 minutes from the airport, it’s surrounded by the vestiges of an ice age, bedecked with conifers. The resort piggybacks on Austin’s musical laid-back sensibility with a slew of family and outdoor, dude ranch-esque activities. If your idea of ranch life extends beyond back-breaking work followed by baked beans around the campfire to a spa, outstanding food, riding stables and a kiddy float river, this place is for you. The resort’s demanding Arthur Hills-designed Wolfdancer course actually traverses three distinct terrains, further confounding generalizations.
Austin treats its celebrities without fanfare. Part-time local tabloid staple Sandra Bullock has a restaurant down on Sixth (our Bourbon Street) called Bess. To the delight of the cart girls, her old beau Matthew McConnaughey occasionally turns up at Jimmy Clay Golf Course, and any Tour-playing Texan under 40 played his or her high school championship golf at the popular 36-hole muni complex. There’s also Willie Nelson, whose nine-hole golf course, Pedernales, safely outside of town, is the kind of place where driving a car and playing out of the trunk in cold weather would not be considered eccentric. Cut ‘n Putt is eternal, if homespun, as are the legendary local rules, among them: “No bikinis, mini-skirts, skimpy see-through or sexually exploitative attire allowed. Except on women.” Finally, a word on Barton Creek, Austin’s most familiar, award-winning golf draw. In inverse ratio to Bud Shrake’s observation, the resort, club and conference center seems to have improved incrementally through the years. With not one but two Fazio courses, a Crenshaw/Coore and a Palmer/Seay, along with an outstanding practice facility, golf school and enough Western decor to satisfy Frederic Remington, despite its national reputation, it still surprises visitors, particularly those from beyond Texas. Like Austin itself, it comes as something of a pleasant revelation.
Photo Credit: ACVB photo/Andy Schrader |
