My family left Texas on Tuesday and I stayed Tuesday night in Austin. That left Wednesday open for me to golf and drive back to Dallas. And, it just so happened that one of my Virginia friends was passing through Dallas on Wednesday afternoon.

My friend was looking to meet up for a round of golf in Dallas that afternoon. So, if I wanted to play in Austin that morning it had to be early and on my way out of town! I found a 7:30am tee time at Morris Williams Golf Course and booked that one.

I got to the course a bit early and when I checked in I was told I’d be following a threesome that was on the 1st tee. From what the proshop guy said these golfers were locals and that they would play fast.

And, they did play fast, at least for a threesome of walkers. They played in 3 hours 15 minutes, but I tailed them the entire round. For whatever reason, they were resistant to letting a single in a cart play through. Whatever though, things worked out, as I was able to get back to Dallas for a 3pm round there!

Besides that odd group of golfers, I walked away impressed with Morris Williams in multiple ways. The course is named after Morris Williams Jr., who was a well-known golfer in the area and the course has a little bit of everything.

The layout has an urban feel to it with roads and apartments surrounding the course, however I’d say it is mostly a parkland style course. A few holes have a high-desert feel to them, which always seems odd to me down this way!

I played the blue tees which are 71.6/126/6568 and I was able to chop it around for a respectable score, while not having my “A” game. So, depending on how you play you can make birdies or bogeys, so I don’t think the course is too easy or too tough. Because of the parallel holes here if you hit a wild one you usually can find it.

While there wasn’t anything about the design that jumped out at me, the overall collection of holes at Morris Williams is very solid. The yardages vary on the par-3’s, par-4’s and par-5’s, anywhere from 141 yards on the 14th to 555 yards on the 2nd.

The par-3 8th features a redan-style green, with plenty of slope from the right side to the left. The 13th is one of the course’s short par-4’s and has a split fairway which is likely to generate some fun in your group. The right half of the fairway is visible from the tee and sits at the bottom of a hill. To the left is a hidden sliver of fairway, that I found by mistake!

My favorite aspect of Morris Williams was the rolling terrain. That allowed for a nice view of the skyscrapers in downtown on the 5th hole and added plenty of interest when trying to pick a club. Still, it is a course you could walk if you are in decent shape.

I found the conditions great for the $40 that I paid. The fairways were full and resulted in good lies. The greens had some challenging contours and rolled well, at a medium pace. As you’d expect, there were some different grasses and dried out spots between holes.

Overall, Morris Williams is good municipal course and one that seems popular among the locals – for good reason! It isn’t a destination course, but as long as you can avoid a long round here I think it is worth a look if you are nearby.

Course Pictures (click any picture to scroll through the gallery):