Author: Mark De Grasse

The fastest-growing segment of American golf isn’t millennials rediscovering the sport or tech entrepreneurs picking up clubs after work. It’s women — and the numbers are remarkable. Female golf participation has hit an all-time high in 2026, rewriting assumptions about who the game belongs to.

The Numbers

Nearly 7.9 million women now play golf in the United States — an all-time high, according to the National Golf Foundation. Women and girls accounted for approximately 60% of the net gain in on-course golfers since 2019. More than half of those gains came from women under 30. Just under half of all women playing traditional golf are now under 35, compared to roughly one in three male golfers. Golf is younger and more female than at any point in modern history.

What’s Behind the Surge

Several forces are converging. Off-course venues like TopGolf lowered the barrier to entry — giving women a social, low-pressure environment to discover the game before stepping onto a course. The pandemic pushed people outdoors and golf benefited disproportionately. Social media made golf aspirational for younger women in a way it hadn’t been before. And programs like LPGA-USGA Girls Golf, Women on Course, and local women’s leagues gave beginners a community to join from day one.

Texas Women’s Golf Is Thriving

Texas reflects and amplifies the national trend. The state’s women’s amateur scene is competitive and growing — the 103rd Women’s Texas Amateur featured a compelling final between Grace Jin of Huntsville and Emma McMyler of San Antonio. Women’s leagues at municipal courses across DFW, Houston, and Austin are adding members steadily. LPGA events in Texas draw strong fields and passionate crowds.

What Courses Should Know

Facilities that haven’t adapted to the women’s golf boom are leaving money on the table. Women golfers tend to be loyal to clubs that treat them as full members of the golf community — welcoming tee times, women’s clinics, proper fitting options, and marketing that reflects their presence. Texas courses that get this right are seeing clear dividends in membership and revenue.

The Future Is Female (and Younger)

The 35% of today’s junior golfers who are girls — up from 15% in 2000 — will be the adult golfers of 2030 and beyond. Texas Golf Network is committed to covering women’s golf as a full part of the Texas golf story. Because it always has been, and it’s only getting bigger.

Every year, the Dallas Morning News releases the definitive ranking of the best golf courses in Texas — and every year it sparks passionate debate. The 2026 Texas Golf Top 100 is out, and there’s a familiar name back at the top: Whispering Pines Golf Club has reclaimed the number one spot after a notable absence last year.

Why Whispering Pines Slipped — and Why It’s Back

Whispering Pines, the private club in Trinity that has long been considered the finest golf course in the state, dropped in last year’s rankings after severe flooding damaged the course. But the club invested heavily in restoration, and by all accounts it has returned to — and may have surpassed — its pre-flood condition. The 2026 panel agreed: Whispering Pines is back and better than ever.

How the Rankings Work

The DMN Top 100 relies on 77 evaluators — golf professionals, course architects, superintendents, and knowledgeable amateurs — who rate courses on a 10-point scale from a ballot of 300. The methodology is rigorous and results are taken seriously across the Texas golf community. The print version ran in the Sunday, May 17 Dallas Morning News.

What the Rankings Tell Us About Texas Golf

The breadth of the 2026 Top 100 reflects a state that takes golf seriously at every level. Elite private clubs, strong Hill Country resorts, Gulf Coast gems, and a public infrastructure that punches above its weight. The annual rankings give visibility to courses across all categories and all regions of Texas, making it the best starting point for building a Texas golf bucket list.

Your Next Course on the List

Whether you’ve played 10 of the Top 100 or none, the 2026 rankings are your roadmap. Start with the top public courses accessible without a private membership and work your way through. Texas has exceptional public golf at every price point. Whispering Pines may be number one, but 99 other courses deserve your time and attention.

Not every great golf course is built for the public eye. Some are created purely for the love of the game — a private sanctuary where one family and their closest friends can experience golf at its highest level. Halbert National Golf Course, designed by Tom Fazio on 170 acres along the Brazos River southwest of Fort Worth, is exactly that.

The Vision

Biotech entrepreneur David Dean Halbert commissioned Fazio to build a private course for himself, his wife, and a circle of friends who share a passion for exceptional golf. No membership waitlists, no public tee times — just 170 acres of riverside Texas terrain shaped into what should be one of the finest private layouts in the state, maintained to the same standard as any great Fazio design.

Tom Fazio: The Gold Standard

Fazio is arguably the most accomplished golf course architect of his generation. His portfolio includes Shadow Creek in Las Vegas, Wade Hampton in North Carolina, and dozens of private clubs that top best-courses lists annually. Fazio courses are known for visual beauty, strategic depth, and craftsmanship that sets them apart from nearly everything else. Securing a Fazio design for a project of this scale is a statement of intent: this is serious golf.

The Brazos River Setting

The Brazos River corridor southwest of Fort Worth is underutilized golf country. Rolling terrain, dramatic river views, native grasses, and genuine elevation change give Fazio exceptional raw material to work with. His philosophy has always been to minimize earthmoving and let the land lead — and this site gives him exactly that opportunity.

What It Means for Texas Golf

Halbert National signals something important: Texas is attracting serious private golf investment at the highest level. When individuals commission Tom Fazio to build private courses on premium Texas land along one of the state’s great rivers, it reflects the depth and ambition of Texas golf culture. The Brazos River just became a more interesting place for the sport.

The future of golf is teeing it up right now, and the numbers are extraordinary. Junior golf participation in the United States has surged 58% since 2019 — the largest gain of any age group in the sport. Close to 4 million kids ages 6 through 17 played golf on a course in 2025, the most since 2004. The game hasn’t been this young in over two decades.

The Surge in Numbers

The National Golf Foundation’s data tells a compelling story. Junior participation growth has been sustained over several years — not a pandemic blip. Programs that removed financial and access barriers have been central to this success: Youth on Course offers $5 green fees at over 1,500 courses nationwide; First Tee combines golf instruction with life skills education; and LPGA-USGA Girls Golf has been particularly effective at bringing girls into the game for the first time.

Girls Are Leading the Way

Today, 35% of junior golfers are girls — up from just 15% in 2000. That’s a generational transformation. The golf culture these young women are growing up in is more inclusive and welcoming than the one their parents experienced. It also means the future adult golfer population will be more diverse — a long-term positive for the sport’s health and sustainability.

Junior Golf in Texas

Texas is one of the premier states for junior golf development. The Texas Golf Association runs an extensive junior program with events statewide. First Tee has chapters in Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, and Austin — giving kids in every major metro access to the game regardless of economic background. U.S. Kids Golf runs Texas Opens drawing hundreds of young players annually. The infrastructure is world-class, and participation is following.

What Texas Golfers Can Do

Take a junior to the course. Volunteer at a First Tee chapter. Advocate for affordable junior green fees at your home facility. The kids who pick up a club today are the playing partners, club members, and golf consumers of 2035 and beyond. Investing in junior golf now pays dividends for the entire Texas golf ecosystem for decades to come.

When Tiger Woods designs a golf course, people pay attention. And when he sets it on 900-plus acres along Bear Creek in the Fort Worth area, Texas golf fans have every reason to be excited. Bluejack Ranch — a TGR Design project expected to open in spring 2026 — is one of the most ambitious golf developments in the state.

What Is Bluejack Ranch?

Bluejack Ranch is far more than a golf course. The property includes a working dude ranch, a lighted short course, and a television production studio — all wrapped around a championship layout bearing the fingerprints of Tiger Woods’ design philosophy. TGR Design courses are known for generous fairways followed by demanding approaches into creative green complexes that punish anything less than precision.

Tiger’s Design Philosophy

Woods has been clear about what he wants in a design: courses that reward aggressive play while creating meaningful risk-reward decisions for every level of golfer. TGR Design courses feature multiple tee options, varied approach angles, and greens that offer legitimate birdie chances alongside serious bogey threats. Bluejack Ranch should deliver all of that on a dramatic Bear Creek canvas.

The Fort Worth Golf Legacy

Fort Worth is already home to Colonial Country Club, one of the most storied venues in American golf. Adding a Tiger Woods-designed layout to the DFW ecosystem is significant. Between Colonial’s history, TPC Craig Ranch in McKinney, and Bluejack Ranch, the Metroplex is assembling a golf collection that rivals any region in the country.

Why It Matters for Texas Golf

Texas has produced more PGA Tour winners than almost any other state. Ben Hogan grew up here. Byron Nelson set records here. Scottie Scheffler honed his game here. A Tiger Woods course near Fort Worth adds another chapter to that legacy and gives the next generation of Texas golfers a world-class venue to aspire to play.

Austin’s golf scene is booming, and 2026 is adding one more impressive name to the list. Travis Club, a new private course designed by Beau Welling, is expected to debut west of Austin in mid-2026.

Who Is Beau Welling?

Welling got his start under Tiger Woods’ TGR Design team before going out on his own, building a portfolio of strategic courses that consistently earn recognition from the architectural community. His recent Texas work includes Halbert National Golf Course along the Brazos River near Fort Worth — a stunning Fazio-adjacent project — and his renovation philosophy at Stowe Country Club showed a willingness to make bold changes that improve playability.

The Austin Golf Boom

Austin has seen one of the most dramatic demographic expansions of any American city in the past decade. The influx of tech professionals, finance executives, and entrepreneurs — many of them avid golfers — has driven demand for premium private club experiences. The area west of Austin features rolling Hill Country terrain, cedar and live oak, and dramatic elevation changes. When an architect works with this land rather than against it, results tend to be exceptional.

What to Expect

Travis Club will be a private membership club. Expect a design that rewards course management over raw power — Hill Country golf means uneven lies, strategic bunkering, and greens that demand local knowledge. If you’re in the Austin market evaluating private clubs, Travis Club belongs on your radar now before membership fills.

Central Texas Golf Is Having a Moment

Between Travis Club, the continued excellence of Barton Creek Resort, and the growth of golf participation across Central Texas, the region is becoming one of the most interesting golf markets in the country. Austin’s terrain, mild winters, and passionate golfer base create ideal conditions for exceptional courses. The private club landscape has historically lagged behind demand — that’s changing in 2026, and Travis Club is leading the way.

Texas is about to have one of the most talked-about golf courses in America — and it’s not at a private club in Dallas or a resort in the Hill Country. It’s 2,400 secluded acres in Mt. Enterprise, a small East Texas town that most golfers couldn’t find on a map. Wild Spring Dunes is coming, and the golf world is paying attention.

Who’s Behind It

Wild Spring Dunes is Tom Doak’s latest design, built in collaboration with the Keiser family — the visionaries behind Bandon Dunes in Oregon and Sand Valley in Wisconsin, two of the most celebrated golf destinations in the country. If you know those names, you understand the standard being set. The Keisers build destination golf courses for people who take the game seriously, and they don’t cut corners.

Doak, widely considered one of the finest course architects working today, brings a minimalist philosophy to his designs: work with the land, not against it. His best courses — including Pacific Dunes at Bandon and Ballyneal in Colorado — feel like they’ve existed forever, as if the game was invented specifically for that piece of ground. By all early accounts, Wild Spring Dunes is shaping up to be his Texas masterpiece.

The Land: What Makes It Special

Mt. Enterprise sits in the Pineywoods region of East Texas, a landscape characterized by rolling terrain, native pine forests, sandy soils, and a topography that feels nothing like the flat prairie most outsiders associate with the state. The 2,400 acres that comprise Wild Spring Dunes reportedly evoke elements of Pinehurst’s wiregrass and pine-needle setting and Pine Valley’s rugged isolation — two of the most revered golf environments on earth.

Sandy soil is golf architect gold. It drains quickly, firms up beautifully, and allows for the kind of ground game that links-style courses are known for. When Doak gets sandy soil to work with in a secluded setting, the results tend to be extraordinary. Early preview rounds have described Wild Spring Dunes in exactly those terms.

The Timeline

Founder preview play began in early 2026, with a grand opening scheduled for fall 2026. The course will eventually be joined by a second championship course designed by the legendary duo of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw — two more architects whose work consistently lands on best-courses lists. When both courses are open, Wild Spring Dunes will rival any golf destination in the country.

The property will operate as a lodging-and-golf destination in the Bandon/Sand Valley mold, meaning guests stay on-site and play multiple rounds across multiple courses. It’s built for the serious golfer who wants to immerse themselves in the game for a few days, away from everything else.

What It Means for Texas Golf

Texas has always had great golf. It has elite private clubs, strong municipal facilities, and a Tour presence that few states can match. What it has lacked — until now — is a true destination golf resort with the caliber of Bandon Dunes. Wild Spring Dunes fills that gap in a way that should put Mt. Enterprise on every serious golfer’s map.

The course sits roughly two hours from both Dallas and Houston, making it accessible for a long weekend trip from either metro without requiring a flight. That’s a significant advantage for Texas golfers who’ve had to travel to Oregon, Wisconsin, or Scotland to experience this caliber of design. It’s now going to be in their backyard.

Get On the Radar Now

Wild Spring Dunes is expected to be heavily subscribed when it opens to the public. If you’re a serious golfer in Texas, get on their contact list now at wildspringdunes.com. Grand opening tee times will go fast, and this is the kind of course people will be talking about for decades.

Texas golf just got a lot more interesting. Wild Spring Dunes is coming, and it’s going to be something worth waiting for.

Scottie Scheffler is the best golfer in the world. He’s also, inexplicably, winless in majors through the first half of 2026 — and the reason why is becoming one of the most compelling storylines in the sport. For Texas golf fans who have been watching the Fort Worth native dominate the Tour all season, the question keeps coming up: when does Scheffler finally close one out on a Sunday?

Runner-Up Four Times in Five Starts

Let that sink in. Over his last five events, Scottie Scheffler has finished runner-up in four of them — including The Masters and the 2026 PGA Championship at Aronimink. His ball-striking is as elite as anyone who has ever played this game. His course management is exceptional. His mental game is largely bulletproof. And yet the putter keeps costing him majors.

At the PGA Championship, Scheffler was in the thick of it through 36 holes — he even shared the first-round lead. Then came Friday, when he finished 124th of 156 players in strokes gained: putting, losing a stroke and a half to the field in a single round. Saturday was worse. By the time Aaron Rai was lifting the Wanamaker Trophy on Sunday, Scheffler was watching from a distance, another near-miss added to the 2026 ledger.

The Pattern Is Familiar

This isn’t a new story. At last year’s U.S. Open, Scheffler’s putting faltered in the same way — elite ball-striking undermined by inconsistency on the greens, a T-7 finish that felt like a missed opportunity. The 2026 major season has simply reprised that theme on a bigger stage, multiple times.

Here’s the thing: when Scheffler’s putter is even average, he’s unbeatable. He leads almost every Tour metric that matters — strokes gained: approach, GIR percentage, scrambling. At the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, he actually ranked eighth in putting and still nearly won the tournament. That version of Scheffler — the one where the flat stick cooperates — is the scariest player alive.

The Texas Connection

Scheffler grew up in the Dallas area, played college golf at the University of Texas, and still calls Texas home. For the Texas golf community, watching him compete at this level — and watching him come so close, so consistently — has been equal parts exhilarating and agonizing.

He’s not just a world No. 1 who happens to live in Texas. He’s a product of Texas golf — the junior programs, the university system, the competitive culture that this state breeds into every kid who picks up a club. His success at the Tour level reflects well on all of it, even when the majors slip away.

Is the Major Still Coming?

Almost certainly yes. Scheffler is 29 years old. He won the Masters in 2022 and 2024. He’s played in every major since turning pro and has contended in the majority of them. The putting woes are real, but they’re also the kind of thing that top players work on obsessively — and Scheffler is not the type to accept a weakness and move on.

There’s also this: runner-up finishes at majors aren’t just near-misses. They’re validation. They say you belong, you can compete, you do the important things right. Scheffler finishes second because he gets himself in position to win, which is the hardest part. The closing part will come.

What to Watch at the U.S. Open and The Open Championship

The 2026 calendar still has two more majors remaining — the U.S. Open and The Open Championship. If Scheffler arrives at either venue with a putter that’s cooperating even at a Tour-average level, history suggests he will be the most dangerous player in the field. Watch his strokes gained: putting in the first round. If that number is positive, it might be his week.

Texas golf is watching. And when Scheffler does finally win his next major, the celebration in this state is going to be something special.