After a week in Dallas I was back on the road, this time headed west to Las Vegas for a few PTO days filled with golf. I worked Monday and Tuesday from a hotel room and then met up with a friend starting on Wednesday for our main rounds.
Saturday was a travel day for me and I had a couple courses in mind, including Stoney Ridge Golf Course. Stoney Ridge was on my radar because it is along the route from Dallas to the I-40 in Amarillo. I’ve passed by the course a couple times now and from what I could see from the highway it looked like a decent place. So, this time around I pulled into the parking lot to see if things were busy.
Well, there turned out to be only four cars in the lot! One of those cars belonged to a twosome and they were nice enough to let me go out ahead of them. Knowing I had a long drive in front of me I quickly played in two hours. Perfect stuff on a travel day!
Stoney Ridge is a municipal course (the city of Childress owns it) so it won’t win any best in-state awards and really doesn’t look like much – especially this time of year when the grass is dormant. However, I very much enjoyed my round and didn’t find anything unsatisfactory about the course.
The course has a links look to it, some elevation change, enough interesting holes to make you think and it is friendly to play. It was well cared for so it checks a bunch of boxes that I’m looking for when seeking a casual and affordable round of golf.
From what I can find Stoney Ridge opened in 2008, but I saw the resturant with a logo for “Childress Country Club”. I’m not sure if the course was re-done in 2008 or if nine holes were added or what. If anyone knows the course’s history please comment below! Either way, Stoney Ridge is a fairly simple design with few bunkers and gently sloping greens.
I played the blue tees which are 71.5/122/6312 and Stoney Ridge isn’t a difficult course. The gold tees move the yardage back over 6,700 yards but even from there it shouldn’t be too bad. The driving areas are large and except for a couple holes that cross a creek there isn’t the potential for a lot to go wrong. Some fescue between holes could pose a problem if you golf here during growing season.
While most of the holes have a similar feel the closing holes on each nine (the 7th through the 9th and the 16th through the 18th) are the course’s best. These holes have a more wooded look compared to the rest of the course and had me guessing a little about where to hit it. The 7th and 16th are those creek holes I mentioned earlier. The 16th is a 277 yard par-4 that was a blast to play. You can drive the green, but the driving area gets narrow and the green is guarded by woods and water.
Considering what I expected, I was impressed with the conditions ($42 to ride). Everything was dormant but except for a few sanded and dirt patches there was plenty of cushion in the fairways. The tees had good coverage as well. The greens looked to be bentgrass and they rolled fine, just on the slow side.
In my opinion, courses like Stoney Ridge are the heart and soul of the game. There is nothing pretentious about the place and there is very little stress involved with a round here. I wouldn’t go out of your way just to golf here, but if you end up here I think the course will allow you to have a good day.
Course Pictures (click any picture to scroll through the gallery):