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You know you are in Texas Hill country as you approach #4 at the U of Texas Golf Club. 


    ClubCorp. will open 94 of its private clubs to the public on October 19 to benefit four charities.  The owner/operator of hundreds of clubs throughout the U.S. will make many of its golf courses available for a donation of $150.  The company is billing the Charity Classic as "the largest one-day golf and dining charity event."  
    You can read all about it at GolfVacationInsider.com.  You can also click here for a list of the courses and other private clubs ClubCorp will make available on the 19th.
    Two of the courses on the ClubCorp. list, both in Austin, TX, are fresh in my mind.  I played The Hills course at Lakeway and the University of Texas Golf Club just a few weeks ago.  Both are worth the $150 price tag if you happen to be in the Austin area on October 19. 

    Golf is not the only good reason to visit Austin -- country music, outstanding barbecue and a major university are just a few of its many attractions -- and if you can catch a cheapo flight on Southwest Airlines, which serves the area, you could build a nice few days around the golf.  The daily fee courses in the area are excellent, and I would put high on your list Avery Ranch, Barton Creek, Wolfdancer and River Place (make sure you play with a River Place member to show you where to place your blind tee shots and then help you look for your ball).
    If you would like to look at golf course communities while you are in Austin, or just gather some real estate information, I have a terrific contact there who can give you a guided tour or as much information as you can handle.  Contact me and I will be happy to put you in touch.

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The first hole on most courses is a warmup, a routinely mild introduction to the rest of the course.   But at River Place, the tricky placement off the tee to a sloping fairway signals just how tough the rest of the layout will be.

 

    Okay, they aren't exactly Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson, who have been tapped recently to build their second courses in the mountains of North Carolina, but the Austin, TX, firm of Kite, Bechtol & Russell have a lot more experience.  Their course at Laurelmor, currently under construction, won't be able to avoid comparison, for better or worse, with the Woods & Mickelson layouts an hour away.
    The Ginn Company hired Kite et al to build the first golf development in the Boone, NC, area in more than two decades.  The firm's primary work is in the Texas/Oklahoma area, giving them some experience in working with hills, if not mountains.  We hope the Laurelmor course provides fewer blind shots than the exhausting River Place course in Austin, a mid-1980s design by Kite that had to be redone two years after it opened because its sloping fairways and preponderance of blind shots generated some nasty feedback.  I played the course recently without the benefit of a member in my group; that was a big mistake.  I lost a few balls I thought I placed perfectly, and in one case - a six iron lay-up that wound up in a pond in front of the green on a par 5 - I was more than a little annoyed.
    But all that said, I would play River Place again.  If Kite, Bechtol & Russell can avoid the confusing blind shots at Laurelmor, Tiger and Phil could be looking over their shoulders.
    You can read an article about progress at Laurelmor at GolfCourseNews.com.

 

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From some tees at River Place, the landing areas seem narrow and barely approachable.  No tee shot seems more difficult than at the medium length par 4 14th.