Mission Del Lago Municipal Golf Course

Review of Mission Del Lago Golf Course San Antonio

Mission Del Lago Golf Course is on the southern edge of San Antonio and is one of the seven city owned courses that is part of the Alamo Golf Trail.  To find out more about the Alamo Golf Trail, check our reviews and links on Texas Outside's Alamo Golf Trail Page.

Mission Del Lago Golf Course which opened in 1989 and was designed by Denis Griffiths (who is the only American Golf Architect to design a golf course in St. Andrews, Scotland) is a links style course that was carved out of some natural rolling terrain.  As a links course it is home to few trees, wide sweeping fairways, plus over 100 bunkers and typically lots of wind.  From the tips, Mission Del Lago is 7044 yards and has a slope and rating of 73.4 and slope of 132 and thanks to dog legs, fairway and greenside bunkers,  water on 12 holes,  wind, and elevation changes, the course plays longer and harder than the scorecard states, so don't bit off more than you can chew. 

Mission Del Lago Golf Course has some surprising elevation changes that when coupled with the wind will require you to club up or down – when we played,  I needed to club up two clubs on a couple holes.  You'll also find several dog legs, some gullies, creeks, ponds, sloping and contoured fairways, and raised well guarded greens that you need to manage during your round.   But don't let all that scare you away – pick the right set of tee boxes, consider leaving the big dog in the bag on some holes, and play smart and you'll have a good scoring and enjoyable round.

We loved the layout at Mission Del Lago Golf Course because the course has a lot of variety and there are some fun and unique holes, for example:

• #2 and #3 are similar holes (570 and 454 yards) with fairways that go downhill, cross a creek, and than back uphill to a well guarded green
• #7 is a demanding 425 yard par 4 down a tight sloping and contoured fairway to a green set off to the left which has water three quarters of the way around it plus two big bunkers in front
• #10 dog legs right around a gully and lake then uphill to a green with three bunkers
• #13 is an uphill dog leg left hole that will tempt you to try and fly a large sprawling tree and three fairway bunkers to shorten this 407 yard hole which also has 3 big bunkers guarding the green

The greens at Mission Del Lago Golf Course varied from near perfect to several with some damage, mostly around the fringe.  The greens are good sized and most have some slope and very minor undulation.  They were running at a pretty good speed of around 10, were soft and held the ball well, and ran true.  Most are raised and well guarded, putting a premium on accurate approach shots. 

The majority of the fairways are open and generous and several go up and down hills and some have mounding and slope and contour.  If you really spray the ball and carry the fairway and rough, you're in a dense natural area and lost!  Two holes has some homes on one side of the fairway that may come into play if your ball tends to fly wide to the left.  The rough is also wide and when we played it was in good condition and a little thick but playable.  The fairways and roughs were in very good condition but several had really badly torn up spots thanks to wild hogs! 

Practice your sand game before you head out, the bunkers are everywhere and we counted over 70 before we lost track.  Most are average size to a little large with some treacherous steep faces – you're not going to roll in and roll out.  The sand is thick and varied from soft and fluffy to a little crunchy – which could have been due to the recent rains.  

We played in January 2013 and the fairways and rough were dormant, so we used pictures from the courses website, except for the last two which were taken when we play.