Austin Country Club: Pete Dye on Lake Austin, and 125 years of history

The private club where Harvey Penick taught for decades plays a Pete Dye course on Lake Austin at Davenport Ranch. Here is the course, the club and the homes around it.

Austin Country Club was founded in November 1899, and the club describes itself as the first of its kind organized in Texas. More than a century and three locations later, it plays one of the most demanding private courses in the state on the banks of Lake Austin, west of downtown.

This is the first in our series on the private clubs in our markets: the courses, the clubs and the homes around them.

Three homes in 125 years

The club began on the Hancock site in central Austin, where a 1934 fire destroyed the clubhouse. It moved to Riverside Drive in 1949, then to its current home at Davenport Ranch, where the course opened on February 1, 1984 on about 190 acres, according to the club.

The course: Pete Dye along Lake Austin

The course is a Pete and Alice Dye design that plays to par 72 and a little over 7,100 yards from the back tees. It has two distinct personalities. The opening holes run fairly flat along Lake Austin. From the eighth hole on, the routing climbs into the hills, and Deer Creek Canyon cuts across the middle of the back nine. Dye trademarks such as railroad ties and pot bunkers appear throughout, per Top 100 Golf Courses.

A restoration began in January 2015 and the course reopened that November, with Whitman, Axland & Cutten brought in for the work.

From 2016 through 2023, the club hosted the PGA Tour’s WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play (the 2020 event was cancelled), putting the course in front of a national audience every spring.

Harvey Penick’s club

The club’s history is inseparable from Harvey Penick, its head professional from 1923 to 1971 and professional emeritus until 1995, a connection of more than 80 years. Penick taught Ben Crenshaw and Tom Kite, and a statue of Penick and Kite was dedicated at the club in 1995. Austin Country Club was added to the Texas Registry of Historic Golf Courses in 2018.

The club

Austin Country Club is private and member-owned. Its facilities include a learning center named for Penick, tennis courts (hard and clay), a pool, fitness facilities, a private marina on Lake Austin, and a clubhouse with dining and event space. The club does not publish membership terms or fees.

The homes around it

The club sits within Davenport Ranch in the 78746 ZIP code, a neighborhood of custom homes on roughly half-acre to one-acre lots, largely built in the 1990s and 2000s. It is served by Eanes ISD. For current prices and pace in the area, see our 78746 market report and the West Lake Hills report.

Interested in homes near the club? Search homes in the area or talk with the team.