Golfing at Pflugerville's Black Hawk Golf Club

Golfing at Pflugerville's Best

Last week I was invited to play golf at the Black Hawk golf club in Pflugerville. And yes Mertle there is a town named Pflugerville! It's located about 5 miles northeast of Austin and has a population of about about 25,000. Ten years ago the population was around 1500, but this just shows the growth in central Texas the past decade. Hollis Stacy was the head pro when the course opened and at that time she was a pretty big name on the LPGA tour, and if I remember correctly she was also one of the managing partners of the course. But even with her name behind it it was not a popular course. To begin with it is a wide open course which in Central Texas makes it a windy course and a hot course and its especially long from the tips. But even from the whites a lot of accuracy was needed to score even reasonably well. The greens were bent grass which are great for putting on but bent grass does not hold up to the hot Texas sun and they tended to burn to a crisp by the end of June each year. Hence you had to learn to putt over a lot of bare posts, the situation just wasn't a good one for the average player. Even after they decided to change to a more heat tolerant grass on the greens the course had already earned it pretty bad name. Until last week it had been about 5 years since I last played Black Hawk and the big lure for me this time was the senior rate of $26 green fees with a "CART" and "BREAKFAST" and "LUNCH" !!!! What a deal........the breakfast and lunch were all you wanted to eat buffet and the food was actually very good! So by the time you reached the first tee you were in a pretty good mood and ready to attack the course. The front nine begins with a very difficult par 4. Hitting from the white tee box you face a very narrow fairway with sand on the left, water on the right and water and sand in front of the green. A three wood is the best club but it leaves you with a medium to long second shot over water and sand to the green. Number two is a par 5 with a very small green that also has water in front and right of the green. This routine continues through out the front nine with water and sand or at least sand coming into play on almost every hole. Number 5 is a longish par 3, again, water left sand right with a long narrow green and you're hitting into the narrowness of the green. Number 9 is sort of a funky design. Water left and right and water cutting thru the fairway about 200 yards from the tee box. You have to lay up with your tee shot but if you are two short its a three wood into the green and if you try to hit the perfect shot to get close to the water in the fairway it's still a good 8 or 7 iron into the green. The club house at the turn is looking good! The back nine is as difficult as the front nine. Lots of water lots of sand and a lot of having to place your first shot accurately to have a reasonable second shot. The par 5's tempt you to go for the green in 2 but they all have water or sand in front of the green and you need a long high shot in your bag to have any chance of success. Again like number 9 number 18 is a funky hole, Short dog leg to the right with water right and water straight ahead. It forces you to lay up with a long iron (5 or 6) and then a pretty long iron into a small green. But over all I think Black Hawk deserves a better rap than it has. Some of the holes are strangely layed out but mostly the course is a fair test of your skills and is usually in good shape.

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