Golf at River Place Country Club
I had the privilege of playing the golf course at River Place Country Club this week. This private country club is the primary amenity of the upscale West Austin River Place subdivision and residential development.
If you want to play some Hill Country golf and at the same time enjoy some fabulous Hill Country scenery, then you will want to find a way to play the River Place golf course. (For some the best way is to become a member of the River Place Country Club.) This 18-hole championship layout, designed by Austin PGA and Champions Tour star Tom Kite and Roy Bechtol, features a large practice range, chipping and putting greens, and a bunker for practicing those menacing sand shots. There are four sets of tees for players of varying skills. The red tees are the shortest at 4,720 yards. From the tips the course measures 6,691 yards.
From the bronze tees, the layout of holes #1 - #9 is just 3,049 yards long, but what a challenge these holes are! Can you say, "Keep it in the short grass?" If you don't, the ravine that crosses and parallels most of the holes can eat up a lot of golf balls! I wondered just how many balls might be "down there."
Local knowledge is helpful in playing this course. Take hole #1, a downhill, 380-yard, dogleg left par 4, for example. You can hit a "perfect" draw, and end up in the ravine that is hidden from view at the tee box and that crosses the fairway in front of the green. My hybrid tee shot ended up about a yard from the ravine! Keeping the ball in the fairway short of the trouble will give a relatively easy second shot to the green.
#2 is a lovely, downhill par-3 that requires a short iron tee shot over the ravine and water. The green is protected by bunkers short left and long. Key: don't be intimidated by all the ways to find trouble. Take dead aim at the green. A good shot will leave a putt for birdie.
My notes for holes #3 through #9 all mentioned the ravine in one way or another: "don't go left," "tee shot across ravine," "don't go right!" My drive on #4, a 534-yard par-5 was dead center. But, my well-struck second shot went into the unseen wide ravine ahead. A little local knowledge there would have helped to save my Titleist ProV1 from an untimely demise!
Hole #7 is a dogleg right par-4 that requires a tee shot across the ravine, I decided to play a fade off the tee. Since this is a shot I normally do not try, I was pleasantly surprised when the ball left my driver clubface, and faded slightly to the middle of the fairway. With that success, I was encouraged to try that shot again later in the round (#17).
The front nine ends with a trip through a tunnel as the cart path leads to the 10th tee. The view at the end of the tunnel, an overlook across some of the course and neighborhood, is great!
The Hill Country and golf course views really are two of the best features of the back nine! From the bronze tees the last nine measures 3,079 yards. The layout is still challenging, but the ravine does not come into play as much as it does on the front nine. The 12th hole is a 121-yard par 3. That sounds easy, but there is water at the right side of the green and a large sand trap to the left. Unfortunately, I put it in the trap and had a bit of trouble getting out.
The 476-yard par-5 13th hole has a ravine running along the right side, and a well-stocked pond in front of the green. The stock? I did not see any fish, but there were plenty of golf balls! I got the feeling that many golfers had passed by this pond wishing that their balls had avoided this watery grave.
The par-4 15th hole is just 274 yards from the bronze tee. I had a go at it with my driver and ended up on the cart path, hole high, just to the left of the green. If only I had hit that fade!
My best memory of this day's play on the River Place golf course came at the 17th hole. Measuring 553 yards from the bronze tee, I began the hole with the thought that it would take me 3 good shots to get to the green. The hole is a slight dogleg right, so I decided to hit that fade off the tee. The shot came off perfectly! What I did not know is that about 275 yards or so from the tee, the fairway begins a fairly steep slope downward. My ball went far enough to catch that slope and ended up at the bottom, just across the cart path, dead center in the fairway, and about 225 yards from the green. The drive measured almost 330 yards! The 225 yards left to the green were uphill. I pulled my 5-wood and decided to try the fade again. When the ball came off the clubface just as I had planned, I expected it to land short of the green and roll on. There I hoped to have a putt for an eagle. When we approached the green, there was no ball in sight! After a little searching, my playing partner found it in the light rough beyond the green! On further inspection, the ball had left a pitch mark when it landed at the very back of the green. I finally walked off with a par, and am still wondering just how the ball had gone so far twice! Maybe it was that Callaway Tour iX I had found earlier in the round.
The 18th is a nice finishing hole. From the left side of the fairway, I hit a wedge to within 10 feet of the hole and had two more putts. I had trouble getting the speed and breaks of the greens right most of the day!
Overall, my experience at River Place Country Club's golf course was a very nice one. The weather was perfect, the course was challenging, and the views were inspiring. In addition, I was able to hit enough good shots to make me want to play the course again!
In addition to its golf course and fully-stocked pro shop, River Place Country Club has eight lighted tennis courts, a state-of-the-art fitness center, a junior Olympic swimming pool and meeting, eating and banquet facilities. For information on the Club and membership packages, go to Club Info on the River Place Country Club website, or call Membership Director Raquel Hebben at (512) 346-1114 x247. The Club is located at 4207 River Place Blvd., Austin, TX 78730. Membership does not require residence or ownership of real estate within the River Place community.
For information on the River Place Austin subdivision and homes for sale, follow the link at the top of this blog, or give me a call at (512) 913.1557. 
Jim Gilbert, REALTOR, Heart of Austin Homes. Licensed (#0536692) to sell real estate in the State of Texas.
