On Sunday, I headed up to The Bridges Golf Club, which is about an hour north of Dallas. However, from the North Dallas area (where I live) it isn’t a bad drive once you get past McKinney.
Throughout the summer I’ve purchased some iDealGolfer.com vouchers to play private courses. The site also runs specials for public courses and I purchased a voucher for The Bridges for only $23 (taxes included). That was a huge savings off the $61 green fee for the 12:20pm time I got!
While today’s round doesn’t fall into the “new course” category for me, I was very happy to return to The Bridges, after playing here six years ago. In 2013, a golf buddy and I played a few courses in Texas, including a round here at The Bridges. We both thoroughly enjoyed the course and I’ve been excited to play here again!
I hoped to play before things went completely dormant, but unfortunately that didn’t happen, thanks to some unusually cold weather the last few weeks. So, try not to let the pictures of the dormant bermuda grass influence your opinion of the review.
Even this time of year, conditions were solid. The fairways were mostly full and yielded good lies, with a little cushion. The greens were great! They were medium-fast and rolled well. The ground was firmer so I got some roll in spots. The only tired spot were the bunkers, which were thin.
The Bridges is a newer course, opening in 2008. It is a Fred Couples signature course, however I’ve seen Jeff Brauer’s name linked to the design as well. Either way, those are two pretty good names to be associated with a course, at least from my experience!
I think all of the space surrounding the course (think prairie and farmland views) is one of its greatest qualities. And, what you end up with is a links-style course that is designed well for the area’s strong winds! Homes are noticeable on some holes, but they won’t take away from the round.
The front nine is the more “linksy” nine, as you’ll notice some trees on the back. However, the back nine has fewer homes built around it, which will give you the true North Texas feel – complete with mooing cows!
I played the “member” tees which are a combination of the blues and golds. These play 73.4/131/6692. From there, the biggest challenge will probably be navigating the green complexes. If you smash the ball then the tips are over 7,600 yards. The course has large fairways and aren’t tough to find, however the greens are clever and will test your skills!
For example, the 1st green is shaped like a patchwork of squares while the 3rd green has three tiers and is at least 100 feet long. Then, the 6th green is as interesting as it gets and the 10th is a biarritz green. If you know what you are doing you can use the slopes to get shots close.
The 6th hole is the course’s signature hole. It is a short par-4 that could be driven (283 yards). Although, I’ll guess not many drives have remained on the surface if landing there! I could say the same thing about second shots from 100 yards for that matter, ha. The green isn’t wide and the right half falls off into a chipping area while the left half is flatter. But, that left half cannot be more than 15 feet wide.
The Bridges does many things right – it is fun to play, challenging (but not too much) and mixes up the clubs you hit. The only hole I don’t love is the 18th, which I think would have been better as a short par-4. Still, The Bridges is one of my North Texas favorites and one I’d recommend playing if you haven’t done so yet!
Course Pictures (click any picture to scroll through the gallery):