Cottonwood Valley Course Course

Review of Cottonwood Valley Golf Course

This review of Cottonwood Valley Golf Course by Texas Outside will give you our perspective and what we think about Cottonwood Valley Golf Course. 

The Four Seasons Resort & Club at Las Colinas is home to first class service, excellent amenities, fine dining, and two outstanding golf courses – TPC Four Seasons Las Colinas and Cottonwood Valley Golf Club.  Read our review (coming soon) of the Four Seasons Resort & Club to learn more about why we think the Four Seasons Resort is one of the best resorts in Texas.

The Four Seasons Resort & Club, the only AAA Five Diamond Resort in Texas, manages both courses.  TPC is a D. A Weibring design and host to the Byron Nelson Golf Championship and it is available for tournaments, charity events, members, and resort guests.  Cottonwood Valley Golf Course is the exclusive course for members of the Sports Club at Four Seasons and is occasionally available for play for guests of the Four Seasons Resort.

The front nine of Cottonwood Valley opened in 1982 and was designed by Robert Trent Jones – the back nine for Cottonwood Valley is now the front for TPC.   D. A. Weibring was hired to redesign both TPC and Cottonwood Valley and he turned it into a fantastic 7120 yard par 71/72 championship course and from 1994 to 2008 the Byron Nelson Championship was played on both Cottonwood Valley and TPC.  It's not often that you get to play a course where Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods, Vijah Singh, and Sergio Garcia won a Championship Trophy!

What makes playing Cottonwood Valley Golf Course a blast is that the conditions from tee to green are near perfect, the grounds are beautifully landscaped and well maintained, the course is demanding but very fair, the layout is great, the homes along the fairways are jaw dropping and huge, and the service is top notch. It doesn't get much better than that. 

Some of the holes at Cottonwood Valley that we really liked included:

• #1 is a 480 yard par 4 with a wide landing zone, a steep terraced drop down to water that cuts across the entire fairway, and an approach shot to a huge green in the shape of Texas, a bunker that resembles Oklahoma, and a lake that has a similar shape to the Gulf of Mexico
• #6 requires a good tee shot from an elevated tee box to carry the water and an accurate approach to a green surrounded by 7 bunkers
• #8 is fun with a blind uphill shot followed by a big downhill shot to the green – club selection on this hole is critical
• #15 offers a good risk reward opportunity if  you think you can fly the trees to shorten this dog leg left 430 yard #2 handicap hole with a two tier sloping green
• #18 is great – a 435 yard par 4 that's uphill off the tee, then down a roller coaster tree lined fairway to a green protected by 4 big bunkers and the Resort looming in the background

When we played Cottonwood Valley in late September 2013 the fairways were in near perfect condition.  The fairways are all tree lined and most are ample off the tee box and most have a wide and thick but playable rough.  You'll find elevated tee boxes, some downhill and uphill shots, dog legs, some long par 4s (ie, 440 yards), mounds, and swales as well as some fairway slope and contour!  The fairways are tree lined but not densely packed, meaning you'll most likely be able to find your ball and get back to the fairway.   Huge beautiful multi-million dollar homes line several fairways but you'll need to really spray to get to know the owners.

The greens are what define this course and they can easily prevent you from having a great round.  They have some mixture of slope, undulation, ridges, and tiers and some of the breaks can subtle and pin placement can be very challenging.  All of the greens are raised and well guarded by some nasty bunkers, mounds, and/or swales.  The good news is that most of the greens are big, they run true, and hold the ball well.  They were running around a 10 when we play. 

Cottonwood Valley Golf Club is home to some strategically placed fairway bunkers and lots of greenside bunkers – most of which are big, steep, and deep.  But they seemed relatively easy for our foursome to avoid and normally I spend a lot of time in the bunkers, which was not the case at Cottonwood Valley.  The sand is perfect – soft, thick, and well maintained.