Gleneagles Country Club - Queen's Course Review

Texas Outside Rating: 9.3

Golf - Private Course · 18 Holes · Par 72
Plano
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Gleneagles Country Club - Queen's Course Review

Gleneagles Country Club, one of the KSL Resorts (formally Club Corp)courses, has 36 of some of the best holes in Texas. Gleneagles is known for excellent conditions, outstanding service, and first class facilities. Both the King's course and the Queens course offer lots of variety, plenty of water hazards, and great greens. You'll see some beautiful huge million dollar homes lining the Queen's fairways. The King's course has a rating of 74.9 and a higher slope of 146, but the Queen's course has the reputation as being a little trickier and more challenging. We really enjoyed the Queen's 18 and rated it as one of the best private courses that we have played in Texas.

With 5 tee boxes and yardages from 4898 to 6901 yards, the Queen will throw something of everything at you - water, plenty of bunkers, tight approaches, and dog legs plus mounding, slope, and elevation changes. In most cases, the fairways are wide and forgiving and the roughs are playable. But what makes this nine extremely challenging are the approach shots - all of the greens are very well protected with water, trees, or bunkers and some are elevated and hard to hold. For example, number 11 (a 155 yard par 3) requires carry over a pond to an elevated green surrounded by 7 bunkers of all shapes and sizes; number 5 is a narrow oblong green with a huge horseshoe bunker and berms along the backside of the green; and 18 is a real bear with water on both sides of the fairway leading to the green with 5 bunkers and mounds protecting it; and the number 12 fairway follows a lake to the sharp dog leg right green that requires you to carry the lake to a small green with water along the front and three huge bunkers along the back.

When we played in December, the greens and fairways were dormant but still in very good condition - during the season my guess is that they would be very lush and plush. The entire course is very well maintained and manicured from the tee box to the green. The greens were about average speed, mostly flat with gentle slope and little to no undulation. We found them easy to read and very true - putting is not the problem on the Queen's.

 

The last three holes are fantastic and will get you excited about joining or coming back to play the Queen's again - #16 is a 562 yard par 5 dog leg right with a pond and bunker in your landing zone and bunkers protecting the green; #17 is 190 yard carry over water to a green fronted by water, two bunkers, and trees on the backside - no margin for error on this hole!; and save your A game and a couple extra balls for #18. Bottom line, the Queen's Course is a great layout that will test your entire came and give you an opportunity to use most of your clubs.

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Course Slope & Ratings

Tee Box Yardage Rating Slope
Black 6,901 74.9 144
Blue 5,988 69.8 129
White 5,270 72.1 131
Gold 6,352 71.9 135
Red 4,898 70.7 123

Course Information

Course Architect:
Bruce Devlin and Robert Von Hagge
Greens Type:
Crenshaw/L93
Greens Condition
8.5
Greens Difficulty
5.0
GPS:
No
Walkable:
Yes
Scorecard
Beware of water on 12 holes and the 89 sand traps.

Texas Outside Rating

Overall Rating:
9.3 out of 10
Beauty:
9.0
Difficulty:
9.5
Variety:
9.5
Fun to Play:
10.0
Value:
8.0
Condition:
9.5
Front Nine Rating:
9.0
Back Nine Rating:
9.5
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FEES & AMENITIES

Initiation Fees: $25,001 to $40,000
Monthly Dues: $601 to $800

The clubhouse, facilities, and service are all first class. The pro shop is well stocked. The practice facilities were being redone when we played.

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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.