Lago Vista Golf Course

LVGC continues to do its best to improve the course. The greens are in much better condition than a few years back, but the recent flash drought has wreaked havoc on the fairways and tee boxes. Ironically it was not difficult to hit off them, just a bit dusty and requiring planning for ball movement post landing. I had one awesome 3 wood into the last par 5 green that literally rolled from the far left side of the fairway all the way across and OOB!

Hopefully with the planned new irrigation and rain, things can continue to improve.

Lago Vista has been ABSOLUTLY PATHETIC ever since the city took over the course ! They DO NOT know what water is, the tee boxes, and fairways are nothing but rocks & sand ! Greens have been terrible for 10+ years.

How they could even charge people to play this course, is a Crime in itself ! I told myself 3 years ago, that I would NEVER return, well shame on me for giving them one more chance, guess what, it was far worse than 3 years ago !!!

Worst conditioned golf course you could EVER play !!

Shame on you Lago Vista, for not taking care of one of the best layouts around, it’s a shame you can’t play golf on it !!!! NEVER AGAIN

The greens are mostly playable, but the fairways are mostly dirt, it's a challenge to find grass to roll your golf ball on. It was also a stain to get a T in the ground at several T boxes.

My teenage sons and I are all beginner golfers and played our first round here on a Sunday afternoon. Staff was super nice, carts in great shape, and excellent value. Loved option to play just 9 holes. Course is very beginner friendly with some easy par 3s. Fairways were pretty dead/burnt from hot Texas summer and cart paths in need of repair. Lots of dirt patches and unfixed holes even on greens. We would play again but probably in spring when conditions might be better.

Wonderful hilly layout with lots of very interesting shot choices.

Tees

And fairways in really bad shape. Dry dirt, bare patches …

Needs new irrigation asap.

Even a weeks of rain would not help. It would just water the dirt.

Greens were in good shape!

Will return when they install new irrigation (2026??)

A real pity.

The Lago Vista course is located within a community and is in the heart of Texas Hill Country, so if you are walking the course, plan to be walking up and down.

The course had some challenging shots with some blind drives as well as trees, and making sure that I didn't slice it into someone's bedroom window (Ha). Overall, the course was good for a beginner like me, and I enjoyed the pace of play that was offered throughout the day (on a weekday).

There are quite a bit of really hard spots located within the course from the limestone ground that could very easily damage clubs, and on a few of the tee boxes, I struggled to get my tee into the ground.

Some renovations were happening around the course, but the greens had quite a bit of sand spread around, and in a few spots, it was hard to tell the difference between the fairway and the rough as the grass was close to the same length.

No beverage cart person was on the course, which wasn't the greatest given the hot day, but they do have coolers with ice-cold water on the course that was refreshing, but make sure you have your cooler stocked.

A note of caution, with the golf carts. They are only allowed in certain areas, and if you get too close to the boundary line, the golf cart will not operate properly, so even though you're not on or at the sign of the carts, stay back! The golf cart will beep at you to let you know.

It was cool having the deer in and around the course, even while dodging some of their poop on some of the areas, but it's always fun playing with wildlife around.

Course was in good shape, putting green is small and so is the driving range. Course plays well but some holes could use mowing or trimming in the fairway. Maintenance workers were working on different holes improving them. Overall it is a value added course for practice and has some challenges.

Haven't played Lago in a while and although it is much improved since previous years it still has a very long way to go. Tee boxes are in rough shape and is hard to even get a tee in the ground. Fairways are often like hitting off dirt. Greens are decent in some areas but still not good for the most part with giant sand scatterthroughout.

I will go back for a better score. Now that I've seen the course.

Lago Vista is an example of having to consider tradeoffs when selecting a course to play.

Positive points:

- I was able to book a morning weekend tee time a couple of days in advance online, which is unheard of at other Austin area courses at this price point (either because they're booked quickly, unavailable on GolfPass, or you have to go to the course to book/call at specific early morning times a couple of days in advance which is very inconvenient).

- The golf carts were very nice.

- The practice areas were also in good shape if a bit small.

- I broke 90 for the first time this summer by shooting an 85 here.

- There are two par 4's here that can be driven (#9 with a good bounce down the massive hill and #14 with an accurate driver) and I happened to drive both of them and make birdie.

- The staff were very friendly for the most part.

- The course layout is interesting and presents a good challenge. At 6,170 yards, 70.3 course rating, and 132 slope rating from the tees I played it was a difficult day out which I wanted.

- The greens were in fair to good condition. They rolled pretty fast and had a lot of break. I didn't mind the parts of the greens that were under repair because for the most part they were on the outside of the greens or not near the hole.

- I felt like I got good value for the price I paid.

Negative Points:

- The pace of play was pretty bad at 5 hours and 15 minutes to complete the round. Some part of that was because of the course conditions (more below) resulting in numerous ball searches, another part of that was because we had an incredibly slow foursome in front of us. The course's expected pace of play was 4 hours on carts and we blew way through that.

- The course conditions were the weakest point. A lot of the ground in the tee boxes were very hard and our group had difficulty teeing the ball up. With this many sloped fairways and elevation changes, blind tee shots, dogleg holes, and narrow landing areas with trees and houses lining the course, it didn't make sense to me that all of the course grounds (aside from the greens which were green) were dry with a lot of yellow burnt grass for fairways/rough and in some areas exposed dirt. That to me sets up like a links course which this course was not laid out for. This resulted in an inability to stop the ball off the tee and balls that landed in the fairway off the tee ran off into the woods or were lost by our group, which contributed to the pace of play problem we had. It also means that hitting driver on many holes is not advisable since most people (myself included) will struggle to keep driver tee balls in play most of the time.

I think there are enough positives to play this course again, but with clear eyes that the course has to be played a particular way and that I will have to block out 5 hours to play it.

It's been several years since I've played at Lago Vista Golf Course. The last time was around 2010-2015 and the course had fallen into a bit of disrepair. The greens were all plush, but running a bit slow. The recent rain has created some growth in the fairways and the rough, which I believe they're addressing now once it's dried out. I'd recommend some leveling of the tee boxes with some overseeding in those areas. You have to be able to scale a few high tee boxes and raised greens. I'm not sure if they offer handicap type access to senior players but I'd also recommend that. I enjoyed the day playing with my brother and a pair of golfers we'd never met before. Another good day on the course.