Cleburne Golf Links

Review & Rating of Cleburne Golf Links in Cleburne, Texas

The old Cleburne Municipal Golf Course was redesigned and redone July 2009 and the new Cleburne Golf Links may be home to the only true Scottish links course in the metroplex.  The course has a real links feel to it thanks to the wind, tall dense native rough, and wide-open fairways as it plays along the edge of Lake Pat Cleburne – reminds one of the links courses in Ireland. The course was designed by John Colligan, a local who has also designed Mansfield National and Squaw Valley – another couple of great courses.

John's philosophy is that "golf should be enjoyed, not endured" – cheers to that philosophy. He made that happen at Cleburne Golf Links – with 5 sets of tee boxes with yardages ranging from 7068 to 5399 yards plus a junior tee box at 2695 yards.  The tips provide a good challenge for scratch golfer and has several long carries, while the other tee boxes offer something for all skill levels.

We found the Cleburne Golf Links to be pretty easy and we had a good enjoyable round – the fairways are forgiving, the rough is wide and playable, and greens are big and manageable.  However, the wind can be ferocious, the 14 bunkers are small but deep and treacherous, and if you miss the fairway you're lost in tall dense native grass.  You have a view of Lake Pat Cleburne from every hole and a lot of the holes play along the water, but it only causes problems on 4 holes. Six holes are doglegs and the rest are mostly what-you-see is what-you-get – pretty open and straight. Bottom line, this is a course where you can relax, not get beat up, and have an opportunity to score very well.

There are some fun holes, like:

• #4 which is a 320-yard par 4 with a slightly elevated tee box, a carry over a lake, to a green set off to the left on a peninsula with the lake around three-quarters of the green
• #5 is a 584-yard par 5 with a slight dogleg right and a fairway split by trees at 180 yards out – the left side approach is safer but narrow and the right is riskier but shorter to the green which is huge because it is a shared green with #12
• #8 is a picturesque 160-yard par three with a carry over water to a green with a left front bunker and a ridge across the middle
• #11 is another good hole – 564 yards that plays shorter if you can hug the left side or you can risk the right side narrow approach as the water cuts in splitting the fairway leading to the green.

When we played in May the fairways were not in the best condition – dry, thin, and lots of weeds.  Playable with lots of extra roll.  The fairways are wide and forgiving, but if you miss them you'll never find your ball.

The greens are large with a mixture of some slope and contour plus a few ridges and tiers – nothing significant but your need to study them carefully before putting! The greens were in pretty good condition,  a little bumpy, and a tad slow (8 or so) when we played.

The bunkers are all small pot type bunkers and most are fairly deep – try hard to avoid them!  The sand was ok but the edges needed a little TLC.