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  • Links to the Past: The Hidden History on Texas Golf Courses by Dan K. Utley, Stanley O. Graves
  • Nancy Baker Jones and Art Stricklin
Links to the Past: The Hidden History on Texas Golf Courses. By Dan K. Utley with Stanley O. Graves. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2018. Pp. 288. Photographs, maps, notes, index.)

Texas has more than 800 golf courses, public and private, down-home to dignified, and at least as many great players, great events, and great characters. But Texas historian Dan K. Utley has done an excellent job of categorizing some of its most famous and sometimes forgotten golf courses in Links to the Past: the Hidden History on Texas Golf Courses.

The 270-page book is divided into two nine-chapter parts, the Front Nine and Back Nine. Each takes a Texas course and explains what makes it unique and historical, the layout, period of significance, and any signature holes.

Utley, chief historian at the Center for Texas Public History at Texas State University, rightly includes Texas’s first and most historic public course, Brackenridge Park in San Antonio, and also Austin’s Onion Creek, the birthplace of the highly popular Senior (now Champions) Tour, in the Front Nine of his well-researched book. Public golf courses like Brackenridge Park, just north of downtown San Antonio, did not exist before dedicated Texas golf dreamer John Bredemus, noted architect A. W. Tillinghast, and renowned businessman George W. Brackenridge got involved. When golf first came to Texas, it was mainly for the privileged class, especially those who had immigrated from the North and wanted to pursue their favorite sport. But leave it to Bredemus, the first head pro, and Tillinghast the architect, who had already done brilliant work in the Northeast, to make it available to the public. “Ole Brack,” as the locals came to call it, debuted in the fall of 1916. It was the first eighteen-hole municipal course in Texas and the first with true grass greens (most courses in the state had either sand or oil-dressed putting surfaces). The layout attracted area residents and, as Utley points out, San Antonio sports writer Jack O’Brien boosted the course to new heights of popularity. He suggested a professional golf tournament, now known as the PGA Tour’s Texas Open, after nine decades the oldest professional tournament held in San Antonio.

Onion Creek, built in the early 1970s by golf legend Jimmy Demaret, may not have had the historic background of Ole Brack, but its true contribution [End Page 237] to golf came in 1978 when it hosted the first Legends of Golf event. That led to the hugely popular Champions Tour, where today’s golf fans can witness legends from the past playing competitive golf against their fellow legends.

Other entertaining stories in the Front Nine include the historic Butterfield Trail course in El Paso, where architect Tom Fazio has breathed new life into a stunning setting; San Felipe Springs in Del Rio, Bredemus’s first golf design; and Cross Timbers in the Fort Worth suburb of Azle, which is the home of brief Champions Tour star Robert Landers and his Moo Crew.

The Back Nine includes stories about Black Jack’s Crossing in Lajitas, where golfers could once tee off in Texas and hit their shot across the Rio Grande into Mexico. Also highlighted is Riverside Golf Course in San Antonio, where Teddy Roosevelt trained his Rough Riders for their epic charge up San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War.

The book is a fascinating history lesson for Texas golf and history lovers eager to learn more about Lone Star links.

Art Stricklin
Garland, Texas
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