My Friday morning round at Southwyck Golf Club was a budget selection that turned out to be somewhat convenient to the area where I golfed on Thursday. You won’t find Southwyck on any of the “best” lists for Houston and in all honesty it is one of the lower shelf courses around, at least from what I saw. But, that doesn’t matter to me since I’m hoping to play them all someday!

My favorite thing about Southwyck was its friendly vibe. As I get into the review you’ll see that the course isn’t for everyone, but for $35 it allowed me to scratch my new course itch for a reasonable price. Thankfully, the proshop had some great people working there who tracked down my wallet when I left it in the cart after finishing the round. I got all the way to the other side of town before I figured out what happened, doh!

As for the course itself, Southwyck isn’t flashy but should be fun and it offers a cheap round for the locals. The course plays through a housing community and has a links look to it. I use the term “links” loosely here since there is plenty of water throughout the course. However, there are very few trees in play so I suppose the term somewhat fits.

Southwyck, which opened in 1988, is a Ken Kavanaugh design that has evolved from its original blueprint. I paired up with three regulars for the round and they shared that last year the course recently finished grassing over all the bunkers. Apparently this was done for financial reasons and while I understand, I would have liked to see at least some bunkers left in play. With every bunker filled there is not much strategy, just go ahead and fire away at every pin.

We played the gold tees which are 70.6/118/6394 and Southwyck should offer plenty of birdie and par opportunities, even if you have an off day. Most of the fairways are wide and the only real trouble is going to be water that comes into play on about half the holes. The hazards cut into the fairways so I was guessing a lot of the round exactly what lines I wanted on the tee shots. However, if you can avoid the water (I didn’t) then you should end up with a good score.

Overall the layout at Southwyck is non-descript, but there are a couple good stretches of holes. The front nine has the fun 7th through the 9th while the 15th through the 17th are solid on the back nine. The 8th is a fun par-5 and was 485 yards from the gold tees. It was a couple clubs downwind so I ended up with just a mid iron into the green and was able to take advantage with a birdie! Water on the right runs up the last half of the hole so you’ll want to avoid that.

The 15th is probably the best hole on the course. It is a 288 yard par-4 that can be driven. The hole plays across a natural hazard and gives you some options/angles with the tee shot. Unfortunately, all the bunkers here were filled which takes away a lot of the strategy. If you have the distance then playing short and right of the green should allow for a good shot at birdie.

For the budget price the conditions were fine. I ended with some good lies and some ground under repair type lies. The fairways were solid and the greens rolled great. The biggest spot in need of plenty of TLC was the rough. The ball always seemed to nestle down into a low area around the greens which made chipping tough.

Southwyck is one of those courses that is probably best left to the locals. It offers the locals a chance to play a round of golf with their buddies in a friendly atmosphere. For an out-of-towner like me, it was a chance to add another course to my list as I close in on course No. 900!

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