Best golf courses near Austin, TX

One of Texas' best golf resorts is the Omni Barton Creek, located just 25 minutes outside of Austin. The resort features four 18-hole designs, and the highest-ranked layout is the Fazio Canyons design, a former Golf Digest America's 100 Greatest Public winner. This signature Tom Fazio design, which offers scenic views of Austin’s Hill Country, recently underwent an extensive renovation.

Fazio Foothills is another former member of America's 100 Greatest Public, and the favorite among many at the Omni Barton Creek, though the Canyons course ranks slightly higher in our scoring criteria. The Foothills course, which used to host a PGA Tour Champions event and hosted the 2003 U.S. Senior Women's Amateur, underwent an update in 2017 to the layout, which tumbles and undulates down the rolling hills and around and over creeks.

Founded in 1899, Austin Country Club will be forever linked with the legendary teacher, Harvey Penick. Penick’s association with the club spanned 82 years, starting when he was eight years old and working as a caddie at the club’s original Hancock location. He rose to shop assistant and assistant professional before becoming the club’s head professional in 1923, when he was just 18 years old. Over the years, Penick taught and mentored many of the game’s best players, including Kathy Whitworth, Ben Crenshaw, Mickey Wright and Tom Kite, among many others. In 1984, the club moved to its present location on the banks of the Colorado River, just north of downtown Austin. Situated against the backdrop of the Pennybacker Bridge, the Pete Dye design hosted the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play from 2016 to 2023.

Crenshaw Cliffside, completed in 1991, was just the second course Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw completed and represents the last project they'd work on in relative obscurity: soon after they began piecing together Sand Hills, no. 8 on America's 100 Greatest Courses, creating a wave of minimalism and big natural courses that has yet to abate. Though not on property particularly suited to good golf, Crenshaw Cliffside has all the hallmarks of what has made the architects' courses at once revolutionary and nuanced: large, heavily contoured greens that feel subtle; bunkers that have some of the most detailed edging in the game; a sense of elegance and restraint in the construction; and the discipline to take what the land gives, yeilding unconventional sequences like huge back-to-back par 5s along the edge of a river ravine followed by a pitch-shot par 3 into a shallow thumbnail green. Golfers tend to think more highly of Omni Barton Creek's two Tom Fazio-designed courses, Fazio Canyons and Fazio Foothills, and gravitate toward the flash and aesthetics of those designs. Each are listed among the top 40 in Texas's Best in State ranking, while Crenshaw Cliffside is not. Those who enjoy the work of Coore and Crenshaw, on the other hand, appreciate that the architecture takes the opportunities that were presented and works with them, creating a tight, connected layout that's different than it's peers but rhythmic and riveting in its own way.

Lions Municipal has long been a historic part of the Austin public golf scene. When it opened in 1924, it became the first public golf course in Austin. In 1950, it became the first course south of the Mason-Dixon line to desegregate. Two-time Masters champion Ben Crenshaw grew up nearby and played Lions Municipal—known by the locals as “Muny”—as a kid. Some of golf’s biggest names have played at Muny, including Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Betsy Rawls and Tom Kite. In recent years, it’s not uncommon to see actor Matthew McConaughey on the driving range with his son. Each summer, Muny hosts Texas’ oldest amateur tournament, the Firecracker Open, which dates back to the 1940s and boasts Crenshaw and Kite as past champs. Situated in the heart of the city, it’s a quality, affordable layout with weekday rates running around $30. Crenshaw and his design partner, Bill Coore, have volunteered to renovate the course for nothing—and they're a part of fundraising efforts to generate the funds to be able to do the work.