Blue Lake Golf Club

Review of Blue Lake Golf Club

Blue Lake Golf Club is a very fun and demanding 9 hole course that is in the rolling hills near Lake LBJ and it is consistently rated as one of the best nine-hole courses in Texas.  In fact, the Dallas Morning News voted Blue Lake the "9th Best Nine Hole Course in Texas."  The course was designed by Joe Finger and opened in 1962 and the course is owned by the Blue Lake Property Owners Association and managed by the Blue Lake Golf Club, Inc.  We love this course and also rated it as one of the Best Nine Hole Courses in Texas.

There are four sets of tee boxes and yardages of 2301 to 2376 yards.  It's fun to play one set of tee boxes on the first nine and a different set on the back nine.  Blue Lake is short but puts a premium on accuracy.  It seems to play a lot tougher than its slope of 103 and rating of 63.1 and longer than the posted yardages, thanks to all the ups and downs.  Blue Lake has 5 par 3s, 1 par 5, and 3 par 4s.

For such a short course, Blue Lake will throw a lot at you and the course demands accuracy and precision to score well.  You'll need to manage elevated tee boxes, uphill greens with raised fronts, dog legs, blind shots, a couple of good risk-reward opportunities, some challenging approach shots, contoured and sloping fairways that make finding a flat lie virtually impossible, and smaller than normal greens that are difficult to nail.  Your round will feel like you're on a roller coaster ride! The good news is there are no bunkers or water. 

Blue Lake is an interesting layout with excellent variety and each hole seems to offer at least one obstacle to keep you interested and focused.  There are also so fun holes like:

• #1 starts off with an elevated tee box to an uphill dog leg right green – it offers an excellent risk-reward shot to carry the trees to shorten the hole, demands an accurate shot off the tee to avoid the trees and gully on the left and not overshot the fairway, and then you need to fly a  tree in the middle of the fairway and stuff it on a small green
• most of the par threes are downhill shots to small oval greens with raised fronts and sloping sides and three of the par 3s are 172, 189, and 191 yards with little margin for error
• #5 is a fun 366-yard par four with a slightly uphill shot and then a downhill shot to an elevated turtle back green with a great view of Lake LBJ – a good risk-reward opportunity off the tee if you think you can carry the trees and not spray it right down the sloping fairway
• the only par 5 is an uphill shot to the fairway with a big oak tree smack dab in the middle of it and then a slightly downhill shot to a dog left green

We have played Blue Lake several times over the years and it's always in good condition, particularly for a course with such low rates and a relatively small budget.  The fairways have some bare spots but are very playable and rough is wide and playable.  Most of the fairways are sloping, contoured, and have significant elevation changes. 

The greens are mostly ovals and range from small to average.  Over the last years, the superintendent has been working hard on making the greens larger.  And when we played in May they were much larger then what we played over the past several years.  They are still a tad difficult to hit and hold – you've got to come in high and bump and runs are tough because of the raised fronts.  The greens were in good condition and run true but a little slow.  Most have some slope but they are easy to read. 

Bottom line – fun and challenging holes, good conditions, and excellent value.