The Golf Club at Twin Creeks

The Golf Club at Twin Creeks opened in 1995 and it was designed and built by Arnold Palmer and is one of his signature courses.  Arnold describes Twin Creek as follows:   "The Golf Club at Twin Creeks could be one of the best courses in the State of Texas and the most peaceful 18 hole course I have ever designed.  The golf course is of a traditional nature and is very much in harmony with the natural landscape."   Like most Arnold Palmer courses, Twin Creeks is very playable and fair to all levels of play and a pretty traditional and straightforward layout with no tricks or surprises – in most cases you can see the pin and what you're up against and plan your strategy accordingly.  

Palmer designed Twin Creeks around two creeks and several ponds.  The course plays through a beautiful golf community with several huge beautiful homes set well back off the fairways, they shouldn't come into play unless you really spray the ball.  You'll also encounter water on 10 holes including six ponds waiting for your golf ball, a blind shot, an uphill as well as downhill hole, dog legs, forced carries, some risk reward opportunities, and several strategically placed bunkers.  Some examples include:

• #5 is a short 352 yard par 4 but it's uphill into the prevailing wind and the fairway zig zags through a mine field of 8 bunkers – accuracy all the way to the tee is critical on this hole  – – a – ddd
• #7 is a very fun and somewhat challenging 548 yard par 5 – from the tee box you'll have a blind slightly uphill shot to the fairway and a tough shot downhill to a small challenging green with lots of slope and undulation and no room for error thanks to a pond on the front and left side – the good news is with some good downhill roll, two good shots give you an opportunity for an eagle or at least a birdie
• #14 is a short 346 yard par 4 offering a great risk reward opportunity to try and fly the trees and stuff it on the green
• holes 16, 17, and 18 are three excellent and challenging finishing holes with a combination of water, strategically placed bunkers, tight landing zones, well guarded greens, and a couple opportunities to test your go-for-it attitude

Twin Creeks has a links feel to it – fairly open, generally flat, but with lots of berms and mounds, and contour to the fairway. The twin creeks line 4 holes but the dense tee line and underbrush will most likely devour your ball before it finds it's water for a drink.  

As you can tell from the pictures, when we played in November the fairways were dormant, but still in near perfect condition.  In the summer, the course would be pretty with trees, creeks, homes, and the contrast been the lush fairways and rough.  Most of the fairways have ample landing zones and when we played in December, the wide rough was very playable allowing us to play some of the holes a little different then we play them would during the summer.  In the summer, the rough is much thicker and much tougher. 

The greens are what make Twin Creeks challenging.  They range in shape as well as size – from oval to oblong and from huge to small.  Most are well guarded with water or one to six bunkers and all of the greens have some slope and undulation – some of which is very severe.  And they typically run pretty fast – about a 10 or 11 when we played.  The greens were in near perfect condition, held the ball well, and were smooth and true – if you could read the breaks.  Two and three putts were common for us.

The bunkers also range in size from pot sized to some real monsters.  And most are steep faced.  When we played the sand was gritty, very thin, and challenging to hit out of – it felt more like playing on dirt!  I talked to the General Manager and he told me that they are planning to redo all the bunkers with new sand in the near future. 

The Golf Club at Twin Creeks is short from all of the tee boxes and it's very fair, which means it gives you an opportunity to head to the 19th hole with a record scoring low round.  You can usually find a discounted tee time or a special that will make Twin Creeks an excellent value for such a quality and fun course.