The Golf Club of Texas

Pretty nice layout but very poor greens. Not a chance to land the ball near the pin will roll off the back of green. No ball marks at all on greens as they are rock hard and not smooth at all. Fairways or deep unplayable wasteland areas. I had fun with my friends but not somewhere I would want to play again.

The more they work on it the better it gets

It's hard to judge before grass is growing. When more grass is growing then we will see.

Certainly a great value and course worth the visit. Staff is knowledgeable and there is a wide range of practice facilities.

Fantastic value for the money. Greens a little hard, but great course layout with natural surrounding environment. Will play again.

No dought greens are hard, I couldn’t get the ball to check at all, normally never have a problem. Than when I came up short hitting the green the ball stopped, Humm. Bunkers like half need sand replaced to many rocks & dirt. Overall was like playing a muney coarse, for the dollar it’s a good coarse to play at least once.

This course is so bad you will lose your ball in the fairway. Grass is overgrown, ground is hard as a rock, greens are a sand trap. Horrible course. Take your money to Canyon Springs.

This course has so much potential and yet they continue to let it go. Greens are not receptive at all and hard as a rock. They do not roll well at all and the fairways are blotchy and dead. I will not be returning here again.

Course is much improved since I last played here 2 months ago. The staff is always first rate!

I must repeat what a previous reviewer mentioned. Most of the sand traps did not have sand! Just raked dirt that was very hard in the Texas sun and allowed for easier removal of errant shots. But, who really wants that? One hole had large flat hard sand traps that I used to skip through to the green. Not very realistic golf. These same sand traps had visual trails where other walking golfers had easily walked right across the sand traps. This course is very close to a super play while very close to an average play. What will the owners choose? Even the potholes in the long driveway suggest that maintenance is not important to an otherwise fine facility.

Great course layout, staff was very helpful and friendly. Was wet when we went out but the greens in great shape but very firm even with all the moisture. Great value.

The clubhouse et al was great and the staff personable and friendly. Two thumbs up for that! But now let's get to the rest...

I always try to be a fair reviewer. If you're awesome then I'll shout it from the mountain tops. But if you lacking, then I'm going to point that out just as well. It's not meant to tear down a course nor their personnel. It's meant to give an honest interpretation of my experience. Some courses might listen and make adjustments were applicable. And some won't be able to swallow their pride and will subsequently brush off said comments. Those latter courses will very likely see a steady decline in business, revenue, rates they can charge, etc. We'd all like every course to be in tip-top shape. While it's just not possible, all courses should put in the appropriate effort.

I know that some course comments below are influenced by the fact that we're playing in the winter. But this is also central Texas and it's been a very mild winter. In the end, I feel my commentary is mostly justified regardless of the time of year. On top of that, I see a number of recent reviews all saying how the course is in great shape, etc. The layout is fine and all. But I'm wondering if some of y'all need to get out more and play some other courses for comparison. While my review may seem so, I wasn't in a bad mood today. I actually scored quite well today; quite well comparatively. Anyway, my review stands.

I'll discuss the clubhouse etc later in this review as I like to address the golf portion of courses first.

There are three (3) putting greens; one even has a bunker on the side for practicing those sand shots. There's also a driving range -- narrow and short -- but it'll let you warm up a bit. Unlike the About description on their GolfAdvisor page, the carts do NOT have GPS; not anymore at least. Not sure when that write-up was written but it's out of date in more ways than one.

As we started our round, several tee boxes were a little, well, moist (almost muddy). It's almost like it'd rained fairly hard the day or two prior ... but it hadn't rained. They'd also seen a lot of play. I'm not sure if the tee box markers need to be moved more often or if they have a ton of players that we didn't see digging divots like gold was underneath. And more than one tee box's void had essentially been filled in with sand.

Zoysia grass fairways are a little different than what we're used to seeing at the majority of courses. It's just not as consistent when making a shot. It's kind of hard to explain it; you'll just have to try it for yourself. I noticed a significant amount of clover on the first fairway or two but it seemed to clear up for the most part after that. One suggestion I have for the course is to paint (and/or repaint) yardage markers on the cart paths. A lot of players need those. Having a 150 b&w pole is great, but let's add in those red-100, white-150, blue-200, and yellow-250 painted stripes on the concrete. It's an easy, low-cost addition to have and maintain. Now back to those fairways and first cut of rough -- perhaps it's a thing with Zoysia ... or perhaps y'all just need to mow more often. I truly don't know. What I do know is that the fairway should not have clumps nor piles of dead cut grass. It wasn't on every hole but certainly present on enough holes that I took note of it.

I expect the rough to be rough, but this was on the rougher side. There was a lot of weeds -- tall grassy weeds. There was also a lot of broad-leaf weeds in the transition area from the fairway to the rough. Are we going for a natural look without using chemicals or is your pesticide sprayer trailer broken?

The bunkers were all full and freshly raked. Unfortunately, it went downhill from there. We counted two maybe three different kinds of bunker material. I'd call it sand but it just ... wasn't. The medium brown was more of a clay based dirt with minimal bounce. The tan certainly looked like sand until you stepped in it. One version felt like caliche and the other hardened kitty litter. They too had minimal bounce if any. In many places you had to pick out the nickel sized rocks from around your ball. One of my players was breaking in his new irons on this round; he flat out refused to hit from the bunkers. We didn't blame him.

The (often quite large) greens were all a bit firm; more so on the back nine. I've never had back-to-back easy and high iron shots (which were some of the best I hit all day) hit the green, bounce 10-15 feet straight up, and then proceed to keep going off the back of the green. The greens were cut quite short and had a decently quicker speed than average. I have no problem with that. I did see a bit more thinness (dirt showing) on several of the front nine greens. The back nine seemed to be in better shape but did have a touch of disease/fungus here and there.

There's an ample number of water coolers on the course and a nice M/F bathroom setup after you finish #7/#12. The water cooler is even under the shade of the porch on this building; nice touch for those hotter months.

The clubhouse is fantastic. The pro shop is spacious and has everything you need including quick drinks and snacks. The bar/dining area has high ceilings, a bunch of tables, a full bar with stools, numerous TVs, great decor, great natural lighting, lots of windows and doors to the porch outside. And the events banquet room next to the dining area is just as nice. The covered porch out back runs the length of the entire building with a mixture of seating/chairs (rocking, comfy, padded table) along with ceiling fans. And finally, they have a large rock wall bordered fire pit along with a few more high-top tables and chairs overlooking the course below. It's all in all a really, really nice setup. It just felt completely out of place compared to the actual golf course. The main facility felt like a small-medium country club whereas the course felt more like an old, tired muny. It was a bit of Jekyll and Hyde.

The General Manager made the rounds during lunch checking with the various tables of 'old retired guys' (that I hope to be someday) who are regulars and/or members. That's good to see. I'd like to suggest that you also stop over at the table of younger 40/50 something year old new-to-your-course guys to see how things are going. It just might make the difference on having return guests, etc.

No course is the same as another. They don't all have high dollar membership bases. They aren't all located near high traffic areas, big neighborhoods, and/or more well-to-do (gated) neighborhoods. Unfortunately, the GCoT course is on the far west edge of San Antonio which really limits their reach to players. The area around them isn't developed enough. And yet there's another gated community course about three shots north with your driver. What!? They appear to be doing fine yet have a low number of (big) houses around the course. It's just kind of odd sometimes. A satellite image will show you where a road was built next to the GCoT course long ago but houses never came. All of these circumstances may very well (and very likely) factor into the budget of GCoT. And that, in turn, may limit them on their maintenance expenses. That's my assumption at least. But that's the golf industry. It's expensive and you have to have the support of your area and players in order to survive. I hope things can improve here. Perhaps the spring and summer months help bring the course conditions back to life a bit. As for me, they're not really losing my subsequent business because I don't live nearby nor even in San Antonio. But I don't see myself ever making the trek back to this course from south Austin. Peace.

Course has a nice layout. The greens were in really good condition for February. The staff was friendly. I have to commend the cart return guys because I left my range finder in the cart and they promptly had the clubhouse call me to return it.

Great course design and good course conditions.

In my mind, there are only two deficiencies. There seems to be only one ball washer on the entire course and none on the carts. The bunkers around the greens are in great shape but the fairway bunkers need some attention.

The greens are very fast and challenging.

Our group had a great time!

For Hot Deal - it was a steal. Typical January golf - windy, dormant grass. If you like fast greens, definitely recommend course. I’ll be coming back to San Antonio in mid- March and will definitely play here again.