Cypresswood (Tradition)

The Cypresswood Golf Club is a 36-hole public-access facility north of Houston, featuring two of Keith Foster’s earliest original designs. The Cypress course is hailed as the stronger of the two, having won “Best New Design” from Golf Digest during 1988.

The course takes a traditional approach to routing, often used by Donald Ross, Stanley Thompson and others: Foster loops the opening nine around the perimeter of the property, and then works the closing nine in between that loop. At Cypresswood, that means holes No. 2 through 6 travel alongside Spring Creek, which serves as a boundary on the south and east ends of the property. A tree line keeps players’ balls away from that body, however (while also preventing erosion).

There are, somewhat ironically, more water hazards on the back end that will legitimately mess with players, as a series of inland ponds dot the land for irrigation purposes.

In another nod to tradition, Foster links the Nos. 7 and 12 greens; those who hit too far left on either hole may end up in a set of bunkers that are also shared by the holes.