Small groups playing good courses in and around Austin. Not a tournament, not a league — a handful of people, a tee sheet, and somewhere you have probably been meaning to play.
Austin has more golf inside ninety minutes of it than most people get around to playing. Some of it is municipal and five miles from downtown. Some of it is an hour into the Hill Country on a road you would not otherwise drive. The problem is almost never the golf — it is finding three other people free on the same Saturday who also want to go.
The Social Club exists to solve that specific problem. We put together a small group, book a tee sheet somewhere good, and send round the details. You show up. That is the whole mechanism.
You join the interest list below. When an outing comes together we email the people it fits — matched on how far you said you would drive and whether you walk or ride, because those two answers decide more about a good group than a handicap does.
Groups run eight to twelve people, which is two or three tee times. Small enough that you will actually meet everyone, big enough that a couple of drop-outs do not kill it. Everyone pays their own green fee direct to the course. There are no dues, no membership, and no obligation to come to any given one.
Nothing is booked yet, so treat this as the shape of it rather than a schedule. Close in, the Austin municipal courses do most of the work — Lions, Hancock, Morris Williams, Jimmy Clay and Roy Kizer. They are cheap, they are walkable, and they are the reason this city’s golf culture looks the way it does.
Further out is where the drive starts to earn itself: Grey Rock in the south, Falconhead and Avery Ranch to the north and west, Star Ranch out toward Hutto, Lost Pines Resort out at Bastrop, Kissing Tree down in San Marcos, Vaaler Creek in Blanco. Ninety minutes is roughly the limit — far enough for the landscape to change, close enough to be home for dinner.
Further out, the one that changes the maths is Wild Spring Dunes — the Tom Doak course that opened to the public in East Texas this month. It is a little over four hours from Austin and it is walking only, which is exactly why it needs a group rather than a solo trip. If that is a drive you would make, say so on the form below.
Anyone who plays. There is no handicap requirement and no vetting, because a group sorted by ability is a competition and this is not one. If you are new to Austin, new to golf, or just tired of texting the same two people, this is aimed squarely at you.
The one thing we do ask is that you turn up when you say you will. A small group only works if the people in it show.
Drop your details below and we will be in touch when the first one takes shape.
Name, email, and two questions that help us put you in the right group. No spam, no newsletter by stealth — you will hear from us when there is an outing that fits.
We’ll be in touch when an outing comes together that fits how you play.