Varying Landscape, Degrees of Difficulty Makes for Exciting Golf Scene
golf, golf courses, recreation,
With regional tournaments and a growing number of players making it a destination, Victoria’s well-deserved reputation as a golfer’s paradise is on the upswing.
The city boasts three high-quality courses: Riverside Golf Course, a public facility with 27 holes; Colony Creek Country Club, a semi-private facility with 18 holes; and the private Victoria Country Club, whose 18-hole course plays host to PGA and other tournament events every year.
The park-style, wooded course at Riverside also sees its share of tournament action, hosting the Wildgame Tournament every March as well as the Labor Day Invitational. As a city-owned facility, it offers varying levels of difficulty and stays busy pretty much year-round, says Kevin Stewart, park services manager.
“I can tell you that it gets used constantly because we have a hole up by our office and there are constantly people outside our window putting up to that green or teeing off,” Stewart says. “We get people on the course from all over, many of whom stay at the nearby RV park. A lot of people who are traveling through to their winter homes stop as well, so it really is popular year-round.”
Colony Creek’s tees aren’t idle very often, either. The course was built in 1985 and designed by Dick Watson, and winds through the Colony Creek subdivision. It can be played on days that the club is open to its members, and the facility also offers a clubhouse, restaurant and other amenities.
Then there’s the Victoria Country Club, which in addition to hosting its own events also rolls out the red carpet for the PGA-affiliated Texas State University Junior Boys, the Texas State University Women’s Intercollegiate and the Adams Golf Pro Tour events, as well as well-known amateur competitions such as the Memorial Day Match Play Invitational and Tax Time Invitational.
The course began as a nine-hole layout in 1924, and its current configuration was designed by Joe Finger. It offers back tees from 6,900 feet down to 6,300 feet, and has two sets of women’s tees as well, says Joe Mitchell Jr., assistant golf pro.
The club improved its greens in 2006 and there are plans in the works to add a lake on No. 11 that will run between the holes on either side, as well as adding some tees to make the tour events that come through run more smoothly.
“We’re working to lengthen the course to over 7,000 feet to make it more challenging,” Mitchell says.
Taken together or separately, the courses in Victoria offer a major boost to the local economy, and the word’s definitely gotten out.
“Our course is a good place for events, and the colleges really like to come here,” Mitchell says. “And when people are here they sometimes play at the other courses in town, so everybody gets some business.
We’ve really got a lot of variety here for golfers, so it’s a pretty good place to visit.”
Story by Joe Morris
