One of my golf friends flew to Dallas for a few days of golf in Texas. We ended up playing six rounds over four days, with most of those rounds in the Houston area. We took the long way to Houston and stopped at Pine Dunes Resort & Golf Club.

If you follow any of the course ranking sites then you’ll know that Pine Dunes is a favorite among the raters. The course opened in the early 2000’s and has spent plenty of time atop the rankings, as the best public course in Texas! These days it seems to be a solid top-5, depending on the source.

What is worth mentioning early on in the review is the reasonable green fee to play Pine Dunes! We paid $65 (after tax) to play during the week and that has to be one of the best deals out there for such a highly ranked course. You can easily pay double or triple that trying to play the top public courses in Texas and other states.

Besides the cheap green fee another nice thing about playing here during the week was the pace of play. We casually played in 3.5 hours and only saw a couple other groups out there! I’m sure part of the quick pace is thanks to the course’s remote location, which is about two hours from Dallas.

I think the biggest plus about Pine Dunes is going to be the land that the course plays through! The property is heavily wooded (no homes) with many beautiful pines and sandy soil, both of which add to the course’s look. The course felt like a Carolina course – almost something like what you might find in the Raleigh/Pinehurst area, just less hilly. Overall, things here are fairly flat with just enough elevation change to add some interest.

The result is one beautifully framed golf hole after another! For example, the par-5 5th is only 469 yards from the blue tees but it features a split fairway with trees running down the center of the fairway. You’ll have to decide if you want to carry the waste bunker on the left (~225 yards to carry) or go up the right side. The left side felt a lot more comfortable for my fade so that is what I picked! It is a quirky par-5 but I enjoyed it because it was interesting to play.

On the back nine my favorite holes were the par-5 11th (575 yards!) and the par-3 16th, as both holes play from a chute of trees and have sandy waste areas, which add to their look. On the 11th you need to hit a good drive or you risk not being able to carry the waste area on your second shot.

Jay and Carter Morrish designed Pine Dunes and from the blue tees the course plays 71.3/126/6537. The main difficulty here will be the tight driving areas and the undulation in the greens. I’m a bit surprised that the course’s rating and slope aren’t higher because of how wooded it is!

And, the all the trees at Pine Dunes is probably my one grumble. The course has a very narrow feel to it with trees crowding the tee boxes and fairways. In case it matters to you, the course seems to favor a draw and a fade/slice won’t work very well. Trust me! I certainly think there is an opportunity to improve the course through a tree removal project.

The conditions at Pine Dunes were good for the price. I did walk away slightly annoyed with the greens and the staff for not telling me that the greens were going to be sanded. I called a week before our round here and asked when they did the aeration (which was early August). However, nothing was said about the greens being sanded when I called. Still, the greens ended up rolling fine with some speed.

Other conditions were good, however likely a bit below what you’d expect at an elite public course in the state. The fairways offered solid lies while the tees were on the thin side and the sand in the bunkers was inconsistent.

Pine Dunes is a pretty course, with a good story, that is worth checking out if you live in Dallas or are traveling along the I-20. However, considering the hype I had more mixed feelings than I hoped.

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