FAST-TEE COURSES
If you hesitate to take your kids onto the golf course during “prime hours” because you worry they’ll hold up play or that the course might be too hard for them, you’ll like the companywide initiative to create “fast-tee courses.” At The Clubs of Kingwood at Atascocita, the “Family Nine” provides “up-tees” that create a course within a course — a nine-hole, par-3 layout on the existing par-36 track. It also has put a separate “family flag” on each green, which has a larger-than-regulation hole that many of us sometimes wish would be an everyday thing.

And what youngster doesn’t relish the idea of driving the golf cart? At Atascocita, kids do just that — and safely, behind the wheel of customized family carts that seat up to six. The steering wheels are on the left side so kids do the steering, but the brakes and accelerator are on the right for moms and dads to control so the cart paths don’t turn into bumper-car tracks.

The fast-tee course at Trophy Club Country Club near Dallas encourages more junior play, says director of golf and instruction Rosey Bartlett. “Our championship course measures about 7,000 yards, but our two new fast-tee setups make our 18-hole Whitworth Course play to a yardage of 2,035 from the green tees, 3,385 from the gold tees. So now everyone can enjoy a full 18 holes.”

If the fast-tee courses aren’t fast enough, how about miniature golf? Kids get a charge out of playing the game and their analytical skills are sometimes sharp enough to figure bank-shot angles, and they win all the quarters from mom and dad. Knollwood Country Club in Indiana not only has an indoor miniature putting course, it also has devised an obstacle putting course that kids and parents all love to play. You have to negotiate putts down staircases, around corners, and even down hallways.