Houston National is located in northwest Houston, off the 290 near Baker Cypress and is part of an upscale housing development. There used to be 27 holes designed by Von Hagge, Smelek & Baril, but they plowed under the South nine, and are adding a new 18 hole private course, the Sterling Country Club, designed by Jeff Blume. The remaining public course consists of the north and west nines, and totals 7,337 yards from the tips, but has 5 sets of tees. It's an open links style course, with nothing to block the wind, and plenty to snare the tee shots, including pot bunkers, and the long, tall fescue bordering the fairways. The greens are open in the front, encouraging you to bump and run, and it can be a fun place to work on that type of shot in a strong wind. It's a relatively new course, and maturing nicely, conditions are improving, but don't count on having your best round here. The Sterling CC should open later in 2011, and will not be open for public play.
Posted by: befowler
Dec 4th, 2011
We recently played the Houston National golf course which is the public side of Sterling Country Club. This is a links style course with lots of hilly terrain and water hazards, 2-3 different fairways on a few holes in a treeless environment.Excellent layout, unique holes, but, the drought has killed this course-the fairways were like 1-45, flat, hard, the ball never sat on any type of rise the entire day. Also, there was no signs at each hole indicating the hole number, distance, and no bathrooms anywhere. Along the fairways, it was a struggle to find any distance markers on the sprinkler heads, which only slowed play to a crawl. The greens were bumpy, hard, difficult to score with such tough conditions. For $61 with a cart, this seem bargain was only average in the end. The best deal was a 22 0z beer in the clubhouse for $3! Until conditions improve, I would not play this course again.
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