 Bear Creek Golf Club - West Course
Texas Outside Rating: 8.5
18 Holes - Golf - Public
Dallas
972-456-3200
Website
Locate This Course
Date Played: February 15, 2009
Front Nine Rating: 8.5 Stars
Back Nine Rating: 9.0 Stars
Approximate Weekend Price Range: $35.00 to
$69.00
Brief Description:
What a fun and challenging 18 holes of golf! Bear Creek West is like playing two different courses. The front nine is like a roller coaster ride with ups and downs and elevated tee boxes and blind shots. While the back is prettier and more forgiving. The front nine's narrow oak tree lined fairways place a premium on accuracy off the tee box - miss left or right and it will hard to make par, so consider leaving your driver in the bag. On the front you'll also find blind shots, strategically placed bunkers, sloping and rolling fairways, and well protected greens - this nine is as treacherous as it is beautiful. Take number 7 for example, this 390 yard par 4 is the number one handicap and requires a perfect tee shot from an elevated tee box to carry the creek, avoid the trees preventing a drive to best side of the fairway, and missing the trees and bunker on the left. Survive that and you have a big uphill and narrow shot to the green and a chance at par. The front is the most challenging, but its a fair nine if you can somehow keep the ball in the fairway and manage the fairway slope. The back nine is much more forgiving with more open,wider and flatter fairways and less ups and downs. This nine has a lot of variety, some very scenic holes, and a lot of character. You'll find water on 6 of 9 holes to contend with and it seems like it was easier for your ball to find the bunkers.In February, it is always hard to judge the normal playing conditions, but we found the fairways to be about average condition and the greens to be in very good condition. The fairways are a little hard providing extra roll and if there was any rough it was cut short. Miss the fairway and rough and you're in the dirt and rocks under the trees. The greens were about average speed, had some undulation, and a lot of slope. I don't know if it was just a bad putting day for our party, or if the greens were that tough - we didn't make very many putts and two and three putts were common.Both the East and West courses are fantastic and you should go out of your way to play them. As further testimony, Bear Creek has been named among the "Top 50 Resort Courses in America" by Golf Digest and one of the "10 Great Places to Golf" by The Wall Street Journal. Make sure you check Bear Creek's website for some specials before you head out to play. In 2009 they had a fantastic Player Development Program - for example, for $29 a month you get unlimited use of the practice facilities, free participation in instructional clinics, 25% off merchandise, 10% off personalized instruction, and only have to pay for the cart fee when you play - can't beat that for a great deal on an outstanding course. The East Course is also great and we rated it 8.2 - read the review of Bear Creek East Course.
| Texas Outside Scorecard for Bear Creek Golf Club - West Course |
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Other Good Information:
Designer/Architect: Ted Robinson
Beware of water on 9 holes
and the 47 sand traps.
Service was good - the front desk and starter were friendly and helpful and the cart lady showed up frequently. Pace of play is 4 to 4.5 hours.
Condition of the greens is 8.0 and the green difficulty is 8.5 out of 10.
The 19th hole is good and the clubhouse food is good.
The pro shop is good
Walkable: Hard
GPS: Yes
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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.
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