TPC San Antonio Oaks Course

The verdict

The Oaks Course at TPC San Antonio is that rare thing, a genuine PGA Tour venue a traveling golfer can actually book. Greg Norman laid it out with player consultant Sergio Garcia and it opened in 2010 alongside the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort, expressly built to test the best players in the world while remaining a resort course for guests. It plays as a par 72 of about 7,435 yards from the tips, routed across rugged Hill Country dotted with sprawling live oaks.

The design is muscular and honest: wide enough off the tee to tempt aggression, with the difficulty saved for the firm, contoured greens and the run offs around them. The Oaks hosts the Valero Texas Open each spring, one of the oldest events on the Tour, so visitors play a course they have watched on television, from forward tees that make it a pleasure rather than a grind. For a Texas golf trip it is an easy, high quality anchor, paired with a comfortable resort and the second course, the Canyons, next door.

The holes worth the trip

The Oaks builds to a finish the Tour loves. The closing stretch turns demanding, with a long par 4 sixteenth, a testing par 3 over a barranca at the seventeenth, and a reachable but heavily defended par 5 eighteenth where eagles and double bogeys both find the leaderboard on Sunday. Standing on those tees, a visitor gets the full sense of why this course separates the field in the final round.

Norman built width into the fairways but tilted them and edged them with native scrub and oaks, so the line off the tee dictates the angle into greens that are firm, sloped and quick. Miss on the wrong side and the recovery is awkward; find the correct half of the fairway and the course gives you a chance. The greens are the real defense, full of subtle movement that rewards a player who has done the homework on the pin positions.

From the resort tees the Oaks is a fair, enjoyable test that still feels every inch a championship layout. What visitors take away is the combination: a course good enough for the world's best, presented in immaculate condition, that you can walk off and back to a pool and a steak at the resort an hour later.

Where to stay nearby

The simplest plan is to stay on site at the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort, which puts both TPC courses, a spa and a water park at your door and unlocks the best tee times and stay and play rates. For a couples or buddies trip it works as a self contained base.

San Antonio itself, with the River Walk and the Alamo, is about half an hour south and adds dining and sightseeing for the evenings. The Oaks pairs naturally with the resort's Canyons Course for a two round stay, or with the Austin clubs for a wider Hill Country golf trip. We can build the itinerary, lodging and tee times around your dates.

Looking for a base? See our recommended hotels and resorts around San Antonio.