The Bridges is a good option north of Dallas. It’s a bombers paradise.
Hey everyone, I live down in Buda, but work in Austin. I just got back in to golf in November after a 5 year gap, and now I skip lunch to go get destroyed by Hancock Golf Course.
My home course is Plum Creek Golf Course in Kyle. This year’s goal is to get down to a 15 handicap from an embarrassing 30+. If I can focus on my short game and 2 putt, I’d be trying to break 90 instead of working on breaking 100.
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I always enjoyed a good lap around Hancock when I was in school (it also inevitably beat me up). And welcome!
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You’re so close. Check out The Duel at the Alamo if you’re available!
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Oof, I’m working on that weekend. That’s a bummer.
Can anyone play tomorrow? Looking for a 4th at Tenison Highlands. 10:40.
I can, still need a 4th?
Anyone wanna get out around noon? Anywhere in the dfw area
John is great, but not sure how he relates to Gankas. His kid is SOOOO good.
Good point. A few things he taught me are similar to Gankas, but calling him Gankas adjacent is probably incorrect.
LCCC got a new superintendent in late 2017 that had no experience with golf course maintenance in a Texas summer. When we had a run of 110+ days in July 2018, he dumped way too much water on the greens and essentially suffocated the grass. The greens then developed a fungus that could no longer be killed off due to EPA restrictions. CC then advised membership that they would replace the super and shut the course down for summer of 2019 to replace the greens and some other ancillary projects.
This lead to a large exodus of about 60 members next door to Sports Club once they negotiated a sweetheart deal (that also pissed off a lot of their existing members once they found out how cheaply the LCCC group got in…separate conversation ).
That many members leaving (about 10% of golf membership that made up 25-28% of rounds played and somewhere north of 75% of 19th hole spending) at one time got CC’s attention. The end result went from a roughly $1mm greens project to much larger course renovation that saw them install new zoysia tees and fairways, continue some of the much needed tree removal, remove/relocate some of the fairway bunkering, remove/rebuild tee boxes, enlarge/reshape greens, convert greens to an ultradwarf bermuda, as well as regrading and rerouting some of the fairways.
Unfortunately, I moved back to Dallas from LC and left the club as this project was commencing. The architect nerd in me is happy to see many of the less expensive changes I (mostly) unsuccessfully advocated for on the golf committee (using tree removal and tee box adjustments/setup to improve some of the routing) were finally brought to fruition once they brought in an outside architect to overhaul the place.
At any rate, it was a great club with a fantastic membership for the 5ish years we were there. I hated to leave but life with little kids saw my rounds played drop into the single digits the year before they closed the course. They were able to keep their senior golf staff who I am confident will rebuild the golf operation now that they have a useable golf course. When we look to join somewhere again in a few years, LCCC will be our first visit.
They also brought in a great Super from the Houston area to maintain their investment
It was such a great place to play when I was there from 2008-2014 or so. Course was an easy walk and lots of great groups to play with. They always did a great job with food and bev too. I was shocked to hear just how bad it got…still knew some folks over there and it was shocking to hear the stories.
I work literally right across from the 5 tee box and want to get out there and see what they did with the renovation. 4 or 5 holes really needed some new sloping/slight angles changes etc.
I haven’t played it yet but changes I’m aware of are:
Hole 1 - back tee now blends in with putting green, remove left fairway bunker, removed one of short right greenside bunkers
Hole 2 - moved fairway bunkers up the hill, removed some of the trees on the left and widened fairway
Hole 3 - Now a large shared teebox with Hole 8 to allow for different angles on both holes. Moved left fairway bunker 30-40 yards down so drives could roll into it rather people trying to fly into it. Should allow for more opportunity to go for it in two from left side of the fairway.
Hole 5 - combined tiered tee boxes into one tee box. Cleaned out most of trees short/right of green.
Hole 7 - smoothed out the fairway a lot. Not sure if they added any type of speed slots though but it still has it’s large up and down movement.
Hole 8 - removed fairway bunker on right side
Hole 9 - shifted tee box left to allow tee shots to run down the fairway instead of dying into the slope. Removed one of the fairway bunkers.
Hole 10 - removed left fairway bunkers, cleared out quite a few trees and added a right fairway bunker
Hole 11 - They may have removed the very back tee box…not positive though.
Hole 12 - shifted tee box left, removed white tee box next to right trees. Removed left fairway bunker, removed a few trees along the right and added a right fairway bunker around 120yds out for those that try to play right of the trees. Split greenside bunker into two smaller bunkers.
Hole 13 - removed back bunker, expanded middle tee to allow for a tees to face the left side of the green and RH can fade it to a right pin.
Hole 14 - removed right fairway bunker under the trees. Not sure if any regrading was done to fairway.
Hole 15 - removed right fairway bunker. Doesn’t look like my wish of adding a tee that allows for a drivable par 4 happened though. 
We did a makeshift version of this twice during the Bola and it was a lot of fun hitting a 250 yard tee shot over water to a mostly blind green.
Hole 16 - removed left fairway bunker and some trees along the right landing area and short/right of the green.
Hole 17 - removed back right bunker, rebuilt retaining wall and turned skinny, left bunker into 3 larger bunkers.
Hole 18 - I think they’ve turned the worst hole in LPGA playoff history into pretty much what I was begging to do for years. Removed left fairway bunker and native areas. Expanded the fairway closer to the road. Removed all of the trees along the right side of the hole up against the water. Softened the fairway slope quite a bit. Now players can finally decide if they want to go 220-250 over water to the smallest green on the course or comfortably lay up to a wedge.
Short of them replacing the fairway grass, I never expected the regrading to happen but I was pounding the drum to remove those trees. The super and head pro at the time agreed and we were going to remove them in fall of 2017…but then they both left and it didn’t come to pass. I’m glad to see common sense prevailed in the redesign.
You can see most of this in the latest google earth update as well.
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Sounds like a lot of good changes. Sounds like lots of bunkering and tree changes.
Sadly if there wasnt much regrading done to holes 9, 14, and 18 they didnt solve some of the biggest problems. But 18 as you explain it sounds like a much better hole.
I always had wanted them to make a real creek hazard between 12 and 14 fix 18 and huge regrading of 9 and thought those changes would have made a world of difference without redoing anything else.
Anyone have any interest in trying to put together a refugee event somewhere around DFW in late spring/early summer? Seems like quite a few refugees in north Texas.
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we have talked a few times about getting everyone out to pine dunes for the day.
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that would be an experience worth gathering for.
I was going to suggest a course like Pine Dunes, but thought it might be a bit far for some.
Guess we just gotta find someone who wants to Duel and then make it happen!
I don’t think we even need a duel - could be the first Texas RACDG meetup. Cool thing about PD is it’s equidistant for Houston and Dallas, and maybe even doable for some centex folks and our Arkansan neighbors.