The business of designing and building golf courses in Texas is booming.
No fewer than 13 courses — the majority of them exclusive — are in the pipeline, either in the planning stages, under construction or ready to open soon after the growing-in stage.
Some in the golf industry believe it could be a signal for Texas’ new golden age of golf course design, matching the late ’90s and early 2000s building boom.
Gems are popping up statewide. In 2022, Driftwood Golf and Ranch Club south of Austin opened. In 2023, the two PGA Frisco courses debuted, as well as the current top-ranked course in The Dallas Morning News’ Texas golf rankings, The Covey at Big Easy Ranch. A year ago, The Covey was recognized as the best new course in the state.
Just 5 miles from The Covey is this year’s best new course, Darmor Club, which opened in June 2024 and debuted at No. 5 overall. That is the highest debut for a course since Dallas National opened at No. 2 in 2004.
Courses either under construction or in the planning stages span from Childress to Lindale west to east and from Celina to Luling north to south.
What is behind the explosion? One popular explanation involves the COVID-19 shutdown when many non-golfers, bored at home, began to take up the game.
“There is nothing like a well-hit shot to start an addiction. That fact hasn’t changed,” said Jeff Brauer, former president and current director of outreach for the American Society of Golf Course Architects and a designer of 60 courses.
One of the busiest designers taking advantage of the boom is Beau Welling, currently working on three new courses and three restorations in the state. His work in Texas accounts for more than half of his business.
“I come to Texas so often I need to get a cowboy hat and some boots,” the South Carolina resident joked. “We’ve never seen activity like this.”
Welling believes COVID not only brought in new players but also changed the structure of the work day, resulting in a schedule that was more flexible and golf-friendly for many.
The state’s growing population has added to the demand. Newly arrived potential country club members have grown frustrated with waiting lists. The “supply and demand” solution is to build more courses.
“Texas is the busiest, but the states that are growing like Florida, the Carolinas and some in the Mountain West are building courses,” Welling said. “Where you are not seeing many new courses is states like California and New York that are losing population.”
Tiger Woods is often given credit for the ’90s boom by inspiring new players to take up the sport. Now he is also playing a role in the current expansion as the designer of the golf course at Bluejack Ranch in Aledo, on pace to open next year. Among his partners on the project is three-time PGA Tour winner J.J. Henry.
It is Woods’ second design in Texas, the first being Bluejack National, which opened in 2016 in Montgomery and is No. 10 in the Texas Golf rankings.
Best new course
Hal Sutton is the designer of Darmor Club. Sutton, the 1983 PGA Championship winner, four-time Ryder Cup player and Ryder Cup captain in 2004, famously defeated Woods in the 2000 Players Championship.
“It was fun to build,‘’ said Sutton, who lives nearby in Columbus, about 75 miles west of Houston just off Interstate 10.
The Darmor name, which sounds as if it has Scottish origins, is actually a portmanteau of the first names of the husband and wife owners, D’Arcy “Todd” Barten and Morgan Barten. Sutton borrowed design features from Golden Age golf course architects, including C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor.
Fans of golf course architecture will recognize the templates Sutton used in the design by the names given to each hole, among them Dell, Alps, Punchbowl, Redan and Biarritz.
The course mirrors Sutton’s traditional mindset. Geometric shapes are the standard. Tee boxes and many greens are rectangular. The fairways are wide and welcoming.
That is something he remembered from his days playing in pro-ams when his amateur partners would have trouble finding the fairway on courses set up for PGA Tour events and searching for balls would add to the length of the round.
“I vowed if I ever started building golf courses I was going to give them a nice, big fairway to hit at,” Sutton told a gathering of golf writers in the fall. “We could make this golf course really hard. But you don’t want to play like a U.S. Open every day you play.”
Darmor’s routing reminds Sutton of California’s Cypress Point, his favorite course in the world. Cypress Point wends its way through Monterey Forest, into sand dunes, back into the forest and then finishes in sight of the Pacific Ocean.
Darmor, built on land that was strip-mined for sand and gravel, starts in the mined area, heads toward the Colorado River, turns back to the mined area and then finishes with a grand view of 27 acres planted with wildflowers.
The Sutton-designed Boot Hill in Fredericksburg, which opened in 2006, is No. 8 in the Texas Golf ranking.
Growing the game
While Brauer applauds more courses in Texas, he also voices concern because the vast majority of the new courses are either private clubs or destination resorts for limited crowds.
“We need to grow the game, and the average golfer is getting priced out,” Brauer said. “There were a lot more public courses being built in the ’90s.”
Despite the trend to private clubs and resorts, Brauer points to studies that indicate golf is more popular with young adults than ever before. Millennials, drawn to the game on social media platforms, are on track to become the largest demographic in the sport.
Newest Texas golf courses
1876 Country Club, Celina: The Lee Singletary design is part of the Legacy Hills development and targeted for a soft opening in the fall.
Bluejack Ranch, Aledo: Tiger Woods designs his second course in Texas forecasted to open in 2026.
Childress Hall, Childress: A Tom Doak course is complete and growing in. A second by Gil Hanse is planned. Both courses in the Panhandle will be private.
Freestone Club, Fairfield: The Beau Welling design is the centerpiece for a luxury gated community at the site of the former Fairfield Lake State Park.
Loralama, Spicewood: The David McLay Kidd design is expected to open in the fall (if not sooner).
Luling Sporting Club, Luling: Two courses, one designed by Kyle Franz, could possibly open this year. The second is by Australian firm Ogilvy Cocking Mead. Ogilvy is Australian Geoff Ogilvy, the 2006 U.S. Open champion.
Maverick Golf and Ranch Club, Benbrook: The Tom Fazio design is part of a Discovery Land Co. development.
Pine Ranch, Lindale: Chet Williams design with Scottie Scheffler. Construction has not begun yet and the name could change.
Travis Club, Lakeway: Beau Welling design. Golfweek reported that it will have a soft opening in the fall. It is 6 miles from Loralama in northwest Austin on Lake Travis.
Wild Spring Dunes, Mount Enterprise: Tom Doak designed one course in East Texas that is under construction. Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw are doing the other for the public destination golf resort from the Keiser family that created Bandon Dunes and Sand Valley.
More DMN golf rankings
— Ranking the top 100 golf courses in Texas: Nos. 1-50 (2025)
— Ranking the top 100 golf courses in Texas: Nos. 51-100 (2025)
— The Covey at Big Easy Ranch tops The Dallas Morning News’ Texas Golf course rankings
— Whispering Pines returning to pristine form a year after major flooding wrecked course
— As golf’s popularity booms, Texas enters golden age with new courses like Darmor Club
— PGA of America’s new CEO Derek Sprague positioning North Texas as golf’s epicenter
— The top 50 Texas golf courses open to the public, ranked (2025)
— The top 25 nine-hole golf courses in Texas, ranked (2025)
— The top 25 high-priced golf courses in Texas that cost $130 and above (2025)
— The top 25 golf courses in Texas that cost from $75 to $124 (2025)
— The top 25 golf courses in Texas that cost $69 or less (2025)
— How voting is done for The Dallas Morning News’ rankings of Texas’ top golf courses
— How to get tickets for major golf tournaments coming to Dallas-Fort Worth this year