Colonial Country Club

The verdict

Colonial Country Club is one of the most storied courses in Texas and a fixture of the professional game. It was built for the Fort Worth retailer Marvin Leonard and opened in 1936, with John Bredemus supervising construction of a routing developed with Perry Maxwell, who later reworked several holes. Leonard wanted bentgrass greens in the southern heat, won the argument, and promptly lobbied the USGA until the 1941 U.S. Open came to town, the first ever played in the South. It plays as a par 70 of about 7,200 yards, a tree lined parkland test where placement beats power.

The club's identity is bound up with Ben Hogan, the Fort Worth native who won here five times and gave the course its enduring nickname, Hogan's Alley. Since 1946 Colonial has hosted the PGA Tour's annual Fort Worth event, now the Charles Schwab Challenge, the longest running tournament held at one venue on the Tour, and a Gil Hanse restoration completed in 2024 returned width and angles to the classic design. For the traveling golfer it is a private club reached through a member, and a round here is a walk through eighty years of championship history.

The holes worth the trip

Colonial is famous for a single brutal sequence, the third, fourth and fifth, that players have long called the Horrible Horseshoe. It bends along the Trinity River with the third a long, tight par 4, the fourth a demanding par 3, and the fifth one of the hardest driving holes in tournament golf, a dogleg right that hugs the river down the right and a fence down the left. Make it through level par and you have done well; many a contender has lost a Sunday lead there.

The genius of the place is restraint. Colonial does not overpower with length; it asks for the right shape off every tee, then small, firm bentgrass greens reward the approach hit from the correct angle and punish the one that is not. The fairways tilt and the old hardwoods squeeze the corridors, so the player who controls trajectory and works the ball both ways scores, while the bomber who cannot find the short grass is in constant trouble.

The Hanse restoration widened fairways, restored short grass around the greens and reclaimed lost angles, sharpening the strategy without softening the test. What visitors remember is how complete it feels: a championship course you could play every day for a lifetime, in the middle of a city, soaked in the history of Hogan and seventy plus years of Tour Sundays.

Where to stay nearby

Fort Worth itself is the obvious base, a short drive from the club with plenty of hotels, the Stockyards and a lively cultural district for the evenings. Staying near downtown keeps transfers short and pairs an early round with a city that wears its Western character well.

Dallas Fort Worth International Airport is about 25 minutes away, which makes Colonial easy to fold into a wider Texas itinerary alongside the Dallas clubs. We can build the trip around securing access, with the lodging, dining and transfers that turn a single great round into a proper visit.

Looking for a base? See our recommended hotels and resorts around Fort Worth.