Golf Trips — Texas

PGA Frisco opened in 2022 with two courses on one campus -- Fields Ranch East (Gil Hanse) and Fields Ranch West (Beau Welling) -- and immediately gave Dallas a legitimate golf destination anchor. Old American Golf Club and Tribute Links round out a four-course rotation within 30 minutes of Frisco, all in terrain that plays unlike standard Texas layouts. The region's infrastructure has caught up with the golf.

A remote West Texas ranch resort in the Big Bend area, where Black Jack's Crossing is the only course and the isolation is the defining feature. The resort is small, the service is attentive, and the landscape is genuinely dramatic -- high desert scrub above the Rio Grande, with Mexico visible from several holes. For groups who want remote to actually mean remote.

An on-property Hill Country resort 20 minutes from downtown Austin with four courses: Crenshaw Cliffside, Fazio Canyons, Fazio Foothills, and Palmer Lakeside. Cliffside is the modern standout -- a Coore & Crenshaw design with strategic depth that exceeds the resort setting. Austin's restaurant and nightlife infrastructure handles the evenings without any additional planning.

Two TPC courses in San Antonio -- the Oaks and the Canyons -- with the Oaks hosting the Valero Texas Open and playing to PGA Tour conditioning standards year-round. La Cantera Golf Club, 15 minutes west, adds Hill Country terrain at a more accessible price point, and The Quarry Golf Club provides a fourth option built inside a former limestone quarry. A two-night, three-round San Antonio trip works cleanly.

A Robert Trent Jones Sr. resort on Lake LBJ in the Texas Hill Country, 90 minutes west of Austin, with three walkable on-property courses -- Apple Rock, Ram Rock, and Slick Rock. Ram Rock carries the steepest slope rating of the three and is the one worth anchoring the first-round conversation around. The lake setting and on-property infrastructure handle the group without requiring much off-property activity.

Houston's trip rotation starts at Memorial Park -- Tom Doak's renovation of a 1936 Bredemus muni that now hosts the Houston Open. Second round is Golf Club of Houston (formerly Redstone) in Humble, the Tour-pedigreed daily-fee option. Cypresswood Tradition and BlackHorse South give the north-side cluster its depth. No resort anchor exists in this market -- stay in The Woodlands or Humble.