This course is awesome! Its only been open 2 years and I've played it twice and loved it both times. The first time I didn't give it enough respect and my score reflected it. The second time, I gave the course its due respect and throttled back off the tees when necessary and scored much better.

The course is in good shape. The greens are phenomenal. They are fast and really smooth. The ball just rolled so pure and true with not even a hint of a bump, just perfect rolling. The proshop said that the greens were a 10 on the stimp on the day we played (June 26), which is fast for South Texas.

The greens are also very firm. I hit the ball very high and usually leave a definite ball mark on the greens, but the greens at Newport barely showed a ball mark. This is part of the reason that they roll so true: because most people will not leave a pitch mark at all.

The rest of the course is also in good shape, though if I wanted to be critical, some of the entry/exit areas for the carts are starting wear on the grass, but this doesn't affect play at all.

Last time I played at Newport, the start told me that they are using a new variety of grass that allows them to use brackish water to irrigate, which keeps the course very green. Last summer was one of the worse droughts in recent history and the course was green and in great shape.

The course design is really great. Its fairly wide open in the right spots and also tight in the tight spots. For less skilled golfers, the design allows for some error with wider fairways at the start of the fairway and narrowing as you go longer forcing better golfers to be more accurate. If you do hit it in the deep native rough, forget about finding it. Its very surprising how thick the vegetation is.

Customer Service

The staff is very friendly and helpful. I showed up on my 2nd trip with no tee time and they accommodated me cheerfully. My only complaint is that there was no starter and the 1st tee got stacked up pretty bad. That being said, I still played in 4 hours.

A nice touch is the "iced mango towels" that are on the tees of about 4 holes. It gets very hot out there in summer and the iced towels are a nice touch.

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This course is very unique. Its not as much as a *true* Scottish links course like Bandon Dunes, but its a very distinctive design that blends the best of Scottish links with just enough American golf design to keep most people happy with the elegant manicuring and well defined greens/fairways. I think the most similar course to this one that I've played is Magnolia Creek in Houston, but I like it better than Magnolia Creek.