Our afternoon tee time on Saturday was at Houston Oaks Golf Course in Paris (the Kentucky Paris!), which is about 30 minutes from Lexington. The drive is on a divided highway and goes through some scenic horse farms that are lined by an old, rock wall. It turned out to be one of those drives that had me excited before I even got to the course! In case you missed my lunch recommendation in the last post, Red State BBQ is probably worth a stop if BBQ is your thing. I had some pulled chicken, baked beans and mac and cheese. Everything was pretty good!
I knew that the University Club would have the more top-tier courses of the trip, but as you know by now I’m always in search of a decent mid-level course! Gibson Bay fit the bill and I wanted to see if Houston Oaks could do the same. Houston Oaks looked like it had some potential from the reviews and pictures.
We checked in on a fairly quiet afternoon and paid our $45 green fee. We seemed to be at the edge of a rain cloud and I’m guessing that the potential for rain kept most of the golfers away! We got a few drops but it was another round with pleasant temperatures, thanks to all the clouds. The sun started to peak through as we made the turn so I ended up getting some nice pictures of the back nine!
Speaking of the nines at Houston Oaks, they offer some contrast. The front nine is more open and free of homes – think along the lines of Gibson Bay if you’ve played there. The back nine is more in line with what you’d find at Boone’s Trace National, with holes routed in-between nice looking hoes and two lakes.
The front has beautiful, mature trees that frame many of the holes and a creek and native grasses that add to the look. While the creek can come into play on a handful of holes on the front nine, you have to be most cognizant of it on the 4th and the 7th holes. The creek splits the fairway on the 4th and wraps around the green complex on the downhill par-3 7th, which is properly one of the best holes at Houston Oaks! The routing of the front nine is more spread out compared to Gibson Bay, but front nine here has the same type of elevation change and pastoral feel of Gibson Bay. Normally this is where I’d say that I preferred the nine without homes, but I really ended up liking the back nine!
I’ll admit, the 566 yard 10th is a quirky par-5. The 10th fairway is pinched by a hazard, immediately before the hole doglegs sharply left around one of the lakes I mentioned. You don’t really need driver so the distance isn’t as bad as it looks on paper. The 11th, 12th, 17th and 18th are the other holes that border the lakes and those were fun to play! The water is on the left on all these holes. Of these holes, the 11th and 17th are probably the most fun!
The 11th is a par-4 with water than can grab tee shots and an approach that goes over a finger of the lake. I tried to get cute from the rough and dunked it in the water, which gets very close to the green! I ended up with a bogey but the miss on the approach is long.
The 17th is likely the best strategy hole on the course! It is a 482 yard par-5 with water that affects every shot. The green sits towards the 11th tees and basically you play to the right side of the lake and then cross a portion of it up near the green. So, the green is surrounded by water on two sides! If you hit a good drive you can go for the green in two with a forced carry or play all the way down the fairway to leave a pitch across the water. Or, if you drive it in the water you can be happy with a bogey, like me!
Besides the water holes on the back nine, things weren’t as easy as they looked at Houston Oaks. From the blues (74.0/141/6854) the distance was noticeable, with six of the ten par-4’s playing 400 or more yards. Plus, I found the greens here to be smaller in size. That meant a lot of scrambling for me as 6,800 yards is about the max my game can handle! Once on the greens some putts broke hard while others were virtually straight. My friend and I were a bit baffled on the reads!
When it comes to the conditions at Houston Oaks I could tell that the course had taken on a lot of water. For whatever reason, Houston Oaks seemed to be more affected by the area’s recent rainfall than the other courses we played this trip. The fairways were mixed with some thin and patchy spots, mainly on the 4th, 13th and 14th holes. Those holes seemed to be in low spots and were a bit rough. Other than that things were playable – the tees were fine and as far as I could tell the bunkers didn’t have any stones mixed with the sand. The greens were good surfaces to putt and quicker than they looked.
My final verdict on Houston Oaks is that it is worth the drive from Lexington. Jack Ridge designed the course and while Houston Oaks doesn’t have all the fancy features from a big name designer, it is a playable modern design with some nice touches. For example, the tees are in the shape of horseshoes and you drive through an old barn to get to two holes – both of these things remind you of how important the horse industry is to the area!
Course Pictures (click any picture to scroll through the gallery):