Just like Wednesday morning, our Thursday started out at Cypresswood Golf Club. We were there a bit earlier (7:24 tee time) so that we could make it over to the Golf Club of Houston for our early afternoon round there.
I booked our round here mostly because Cypresswood was convenient to where we were staying and it wasn’t far from our afternoon round. I didn’t want to get stuck in traffic trying to play somewhere a bit more premium and potentially miss our afternoon round.
The green fee to play the Cypress Course is more reasonable than the facility’s sister course – Tradition cost us each $65 (after taxes) compared to $42 here. While it doesn’t have the pedigree of Tradition, Cypress turned out to be a decent “locals” type of course.
The first tee was a bit disorganized with our 7:24 group, a 7:20 group and a 7:26 group, all ready to play. Something went wrong there, or we all were very confused! Without a starter my friend and I went out as the middle group and after three holes the “7:20” group let us play through. We played through one more group on the 11th hole and finished in 3.5 hours, which was great.
The Cypress Course is the newer course at Cypresswood. While Tradition was designed by Keith Foster, Cypress was designed by Rick Forester. I haven’t heard much of Forester, but it seems all of his work is in the Houston area.
Overall, I thought there was a Virginia Beach vibe on Cypress. The course really reminded me of one that could be found in Virginia’s Tidewater Region. The wetlands look of the course, with its cypress and pine trees, had me remembering my rounds at Stumpy Lake Golf Course and Chesapeake Golf Club. I thought the scenic look of the Cypress Course (especially in the morning light) was by far its best quality!
While most of the holes have a natural feel to them, the par-3 14th was my favorite hole on the course. The 14th is a short par-3 playing only 117 yards for us. The green complex is framed by a group of pines and it had some good color with the white clouds, blue sky, green grass and the white sand of a bunker short of the green.
Probably the downside about the Cypress Course is the municipal/lower budget feel of the design and routing. Many of the holes are close together, have flat fairways and are fairly straight. Overall, I found things a little cramped and was glad we weren’t playing on a packed weekend!
We played the forest tees which are 70.3/120/6168 and the biggest difficulty here will be trying to avoid all the trees lining the fairways. Even from such a short length I strugged to get my lay up clubs in the fairway! The blue tees are 6,906 yards, so I think a combo set of tees would be very beneficial.
The conditions on the Cypress Course were a notch lower, compared to the Tradition Course. I actually thought the greens on Cypress rolled better, but they might be further removed from aeration. The greens were full and the fairways yielded decent lies. As you’ll see in the pics there were areas of summer stress and mixed grasses but it was functional. The bunkers were decent and allowed for an aggressive swing from the sand. No complaints for the price.
Overall, the Cypress Course is one that I’d play a few times a year if I lived close. It is convenient to pair a round here with one on the Tradition Course for a 36-hole day. However, if you are looking for just one course to play at Cypresswood Golf Club then the Tradition Course needs to be your pick!
Course Pictures (click any picture to scroll through the gallery):