Texas Outside review of The Bandit

The Bandit

Texas Outside Rating: 9.3

18 Holes - Golf - Public
New Braunfels, TX
888-923-7846
Website
Stay & Play

Date Played: December 28, 2006
Front Nine Rating: 9.5 Stars
Back Nine Rating: 9.5 Stars
Approximate Weekend Price Range: $44.00 to $54.00
Brief Description:
What an outstanding course - The Bandit is a Texas Outside Favorite and one of the best that we have played in Texas. It offers each golfer a complete golf experience - challenge, scenic beauty, near perfect condition, and very fun holes. Plus at $54 this course is a real bargain.

The course winds along the banks of Lake McQueeney and Long Creek which creates both challenges and scenic beauty with magnificent views of the course and surrounding country. Each hole has a unique name, most of which describe what you are up against. For example, Blind Date, Too Much To Soon, Stonewall, and R.I.P.

The front nine is very pretty and most holes require good club selection and course management. Water on 5 holes, natural hazards, and rolling hills add challenge and make this a very fun nine. The Bandit's back nine is outstanding and includes: rolling hills, significant elevation changes, some very challenging holes, blind shots, water on 8 holes, and doglegs - they don't get much better than this nine.

Both times we have played The Bandit, the fairways and greens have been in near perfect condition. The greens are medium sized, undulating, and can be fast. The bunkers have deep sand and were also in very good condition.

This is a great course and well deserving of its ranking as the 2006 7th Best Public Course in Texas by Golfweek Magazine. Golf Digest rated The Bandit 4 stars. Check out this course and see if The Bandit's quote is true - "THE BANDIT. . . the name alone suggests that if you encounter it, you're probably going to lose something. Who'd ever guess that it would be the heart of every golfer that strides off the 18th green?" You will remember this course and want to come back and play it again, and again, and again.

Here's How Texas Outside Determines the Scorecard Rating

The Texas Outside 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; water (which is crystal clear) on most of the holes; immaculate greens (but they are undulating and tough); lots of variety and character (each hole is completely different and includes blind shots, elevation changes, doglegs, and significant challenges); perfectly manicured traps with the whitest and prettiest sand you’ve ever seen; a nice club house with great food and a 19th hole; 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 or cactus instead of trees, and some grass but mostly weeds

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 or dodging other people’s balls, but not much fun; and you can 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 municipal course, with six players on each hole was only $10; it would still get a value rating of 1.

Condition – this one’s pretty easy – what condition are the fairways. A 10 commands very lush perfectly manicured fairways, compared to a 1, which has fire ants, weeds, and more dirt than grass!

Condition of Greens 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 score for the golf course. In other words, we like courses that are pretty, fun, very challenging with a lot of variety, and fairways and greens in excellent condition – all for $40. We also tend to play the courses that are affordable for the masses, which means in the $30 to $80 range. We rate hard and we haven’t found a 10 in Texas yet – don’t worry we haven’t given up and we’re still looking.