Texas Golf Courses & Tee Times

Who runs public golf in Texas

We found no state parks golf system; the big cities run public golf. Dallas has six courses, including Cedar Crest, Stevens Park and Tenison. Fort Worth has 72 holes at Meadowbrook, Pecan Valley and Rockwood Park. Austin's GolfATX runs six courses plus the Joe Balander Short Course, with Lions Municipal dating to 1924. Houston has five: the city runs Memorial Park and Sharpstown and private firms run Hermann Park, Gus Wortham and Melrose. San Antonio's eight facilities, Brackenridge Park among them, have been run since 2007 by the nonprofit Alamo City Golf Trail. The TGA, with more than 188,000 members, runs about 130 events a year, the Legends Junior Tour, and Youth on Course, which gets juniors rounds for $5 or less.

Public courses worth knowing in Texas

• Brackenridge Park: Tillinghast design from 1916, the oldest 18-hole public course in Texas, and the original home of the Texas Open, which it held most years from 1922 to 1959.
• Cedar Crest: Dallas city course by Tillinghast that hosted the 1927 PGA, won by Walter Hagen. The city bought it in 1946.
• Memorial Park: John Bredemus course in Houston from 1936. It hosted the Houston Open 14 times from 1947 to 1963, and the event came back in October 2020.
• Lions Municipal: Austin's "Muny," started by the Lions Club in 1924 on land now leased from the University of Texas. It desegregated in late 1950.
• Tenison Glen: Dallas' first city-owned course, on land donated in 1924. Hosted the 1968 USGA Public Links; Lee Trevino learned the game here.
• Rockwood Park Golf Course: Fort Worth course by John Bredemus from 1938, rebuilt by John Colligan and Trey Kemp and reopened in 2017 at up to 7,053 yards.
• Fields Ranch East: Gil Hanse course at PGA Frisco, home of the PGA of America. Held the 2023 Senior PGA and 2025 Women's PGA; the PGA comes in 2027 and 2034.

Booking tee times in Texas: the local rules

Booking is set city by city. Dallas and Fort Worth both use seven days; Fort Worth's sheet opens at midnight. Austin releases weekend times online the Monday before at 8 pm, one foursome per account. Houston's city-run courses book at houstonmunigolf.com, and its privately managed ones by calling the pro shop.

Getting a tee time in Texas

In Texas, the busiest months are spring and fall. In summer, everyone wants to finish before the heat, so early tee times go first.

Most public courses open their tee sheet a set number of days ahead, often 7 to 14, and many municipal courses give residents or card holders an earlier window. The best weekend-morning times usually go the day they're released. Leagues and outings take blocks of the sheet before the public ever sees them.

A full tee sheet rarely stays full. Many courses let you cancel without a fee up to 24 or 48 hours before your time, so spots tend to reappear in the last couple of days. A bad forecast shakes more loose, and a foursome that drops to three opens a single. None of it is announced. The time just shows up again on the booking page, and whoever looks first gets it.

How to get a tee time when everything's booked