Tour 18 Dallas

I played the course on one of the hottest days of the year, 8/26/11. Consequently my three partners and I had little or no company on the course. We had a great time together. Unfortunately, I have nothing good to report about the course itself. It appears as a shell of it's former self. Drought conditions aside, it was poorly maintained. They had aerated and top-soiled the greens a few days before, but provided no info about this, either on the website or in the pro shop. The inside staff offered no discount to us and little or no welcome other than to take our money. I have played many of these theme courses prior and like the connection to golf's storied past, so the detailed inscriptions on each hole provided a needed respite from the poor conditions. This course in NOT worth playing, and certainly not worth the money. For $60 in the middle oef the summer, one should expect a well-maintained course and positive reception; we received neither.

Course layout is excellent and the replicas of famous holes come close to original. Everything about the course is fantastic except the greens. The contour of the greens if great but the condition is worse than you would find in a muni course. This would be the best course in the DFW area if they could find a way to fix the greens.

I'm fairly new to the golf game and for the most part, I have played on municipal courses or relatively inexpensive courses. With that being said, I recently got the opportunity to play @ Tour 18 for the twilight rate $45.

In my mind, the course is totally worth the twilight amount. However if I was paying the usual rate of up to $95, it might be a differnt story (but i wouldn't pay that much anyway).

The concept of the course is fantastic. I loved being able to play replicas of some very famous golf holes across the world. When I was at the tee off area of hole # 9, it really felt as if I could be playing in a PGA tournament.

The scenary (which I put high emphasis on) was great. The course is full of $1 million + homes, which are nice to look at. The course has some nice hills. Teeing off on an elevated hole # 1 for example, it overlooks much of the course. There are nice wooded areas so you don't feel like you're playing on a suburban course.

I loved the staff. The cart girls were definitely something to take notice of and they actually seemed to enjoy their job. They took a couple of minutes to talk to my group each time. It wasn't like they just asked what we wanted and left. The marshall on hole # 1 actually took about 5 minutes to tell us how the greens were playing and how to play certain holes.

Now to the course itself. It seemed difficult to me but not to the point where I wanted to throw my club in the water. They have several holes with wide open fairways. Some of the holes like a couple of the par 3's require you to hit perfectly but overall I found the difficulty to be enjoyable rather than frustrating. Quality wise, alot of the complaints about this course have to do with maintainence. I didn't really notice the greens being in bad shape or the fairways being torn up. In fact, on a couple of the holes I even commented about how green the fairways were (we played in February).

Amenities wise, this is your standard course. Nice clubhouse, decent driving range (range balls provided for free btw)

In conclusion, I loved this course. Yes I am a newbie to the golf game but take it from me, if you get the chance to play there for the twilight rate, take advantage. For the regular rate, I guess it depends on how badly $95 hurts your pocketbook.