Playing Five Golf Courses In Five Cities In One Day!

Of the best times that I have ever had on a road trip occurred on a July the Second. David Brown has been a good friend of mine since we were about 20 years old and I had converted him to an avid golfer after working together. The dates had aligned so that the 2nd of July was a holiday for us and a rare time that we were not scheduled to work.  I told him that I was planning to conquer five courses in one day in five different towns. He told me that he would like to go.  I ask if he could keep up and he responded, "not a problem."

I mapped out a plan to play five courses in Southwest Texas. I then made a dozen sandwiches. David took care of the drinks and added them to our huge cooler.  I arrived at his house a six a.m. and we headed out to Llano Texas in his pickup. It took us over two hours to arrive. They were starting a senior scramble so we were hustled to the front of the pack on #5. We were able to separate from the scramblers and finished playing in cruise control. This is a fun course that runs along the river and has surprising elevation changes. The views are good and the course is challenging. We decided not to finish with the first four holes, thanked the management and headed on down the road. Read a more detailed review of Llano River Golf Course.

Our motto for the day was “burning daylight” and anytime one of us would lollygag or dilly-dally the other would remind him of that phrase.  All of the towns in this area are 30 miles apart and I swear their major crop is mesquite trees because that is all you will see. Farm houses are rare and travel is easy as there very few cars to negotiate. The next town down the road was Mason. This course, Comanche Creek Golf Course, is nine holes and actually goes around the football field.  The greens are extremely small. We measured one par three at eight steps wide. It is your typical honor system style course where you pay your money into a lock box.  We finished and it was starting to get hot.

We pointed the pickup toward Brady and again had sandwiches and fruit drinks. The ride cooled us down and the food refreshed our energy. When we arrived at the clubhouse we discovered that they had the neckerchiefs that swell up and keep your neck cool, so we each purchased one. Boy did they help! Brady is a nine hole course that has something unusual. David hit a ball and I told him it landed in a water hazard. He said it sounded like concrete and I said that’s because it was. Their water hazards were in fact shallow concrete ponds.

We then got back to our routine of re-hydrating, energizing, and cooling down by heading over to Menard.  This course is a par 33 with extremely narrow fairways and tiny greens. We both drove one of the greens and had our chest bowed out until we realized we had driven the wrong green. The uniqueness of this course can blow away most courses as it can claim an old fort, Presidio de San Saba, within it's confines. You can even read about Presidio de San Saba from your golf cart and you can view the recent reconstruction of Presidio as you get ready to smack your driver down the fairway. The course is located on the San Saba River. 

Now it was on to our final destination.  Junction is a town on I-10 that is famous for The Junction Boys (A&M football, Bear Bryant). The Junction Golf Course has round, turtleback greens. This is a hard hat course because you are in danger if hackers are on the course. Tee boxes and greens intersect. We played four holes and then became lost. A fairground was located where the 5th hole should be. We finally decided to look at the map on the scorecard and David said it looked like we had to cross the highway. Well, that wasn’t exactly true - we had to drive down the highway!  David hit his drive on hole five, perfectly down the middle of the fairway, 130 yards from the hole, and was completely blocked from the green by a huge pecan tree. We finished up at dark and went into town for a steak.

I started making plans for the trip back to Waco and this is where I leaned what “You Cain’t Get There From Here!” meant.  A zigzag pattern is necessary for the return trip and we had the sudden realization that maybe, just maybe, we should have started at Junction first.  We made it back at two thirty in the morning having put 499.6 miles on David’s truck.  Total cost for green fee and cart fees for playing 50 holes at five courses in five towns was only $45. We were well satisfied.

You can find all of these courses and more on Texas Outside in our Golfing Section which has golf maps, golf course reviews, coupons, and much more.

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