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Here's how Texas Outside rates the golf courses

The rating scale ranges from 1 to 10 – a perfect 10 course would be something like this: links along a cliff overlooking the Pacific ocean and bordered by tall trees; lush fairways on rolling hills with lots of natural hazards, and water which is crystal clear; greens you would kill for (but they are undulating and tough); each hole is completely different and includes blind shots, lots of elevation changes, plenty of dog legs, and significant challenges; perfectly manicured traps with the whitest and prettiest sand you’ve ever seen; a nice club house with great food and cold drinks; a GPS; plenty of beverage carts or your own cooler and ice; and it only costs 40 bucks! What this means is that you probably won’t find any 10s in Texas – try Cabo San Lucas, Pebble Beach, or some of the Hawaii courses!

Texas Outside rates courses on the following:

• Beauty – tall trees, rolling hills, beautiful houses, waterfalls, and similar stuff would score high; a 1 would be flat, bushes instead of trees, and some grass but mostly weeds. The pictures on this page are from courses that score high on the beauty scale.
• Difficulty – a straight, 300 yard par 4 with no traps or hazards, no out of bounds or water would probably get a 1; if it is a 460 yard par 4 over two ravines, with water along one side, natural hazards on the other, strategically placed traps or that dreaded tree right in the middle of the fairway, we are talking a 10.
• Variety – what would you give a course where all the holes looked and played exactly the same (“I thought we just played that hole!”); were side-by-side, which is good for finding other people’s balls, but not much fun; and you could see the flag from every tee box? That’s right, it gets a 1.
• Fun Scale – a 10 is where you walk off the course and say “now that was fun” and you can’t wait to get back, or you immediately turn around and play another 18 holes.
• Value – a 5 is $50 to $60, a 10 is $20 to $30, and 1 is $200 or so – of course all of this is dependent upon how you liked the course. For example, if a run down, boring flat course, with six players on each hole was only $10; it would still get a value rating of 1. A courses that scores 9s and 10s on all the other categories, but costs $100 would most likely get a 7 to 9 on the value scale.
• Overall Course Condition – this one’s pretty easy – what condition are the fairways and roughs. A 10 commands very lush perfectly manicured fairways, compared to a 1, which has fire ants, weeds, and more dirt than grass!
• Greens Condition and Difficulty – very hard to read greens with lots of undulation and tough pin placement, rate very high on the difficulty scale. Condition is self-explanatory.

All of the above determines the overall course score for a particular golf course.

Front Nine and Back Nine Rating – at some courses each nine differs in a number of ways and we’ve found courses where the front nine is ugly and boring, but the back nine was great – as such, we have provided an individual rating for each nine holes and also an overall rating for the course

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