Dallas National Golf Club

Dallas National opened on Labor Day 2002 as the vision of developer John MacDonald, who assembled a dramatic parcel of roughly 400 wooded acres just minutes from downtown Dallas. The land had once been eyed as a quarry, and its severe topography, an escarpment slicing the site with ridges and canyons, had long frustrated development. Tom Fazio, brought in to route the course, famously called it one of the best pieces of land left in America near a major city center. He shaped a layout that moves across three ridges and two canyons, using elevation changes of several hundred feet between the property's high and low points to produce bold, memorable holes rare for the region. The private club drew immediate acclaim, and by 2005 Golf Digest had ranked it the top course in Texas and among the finest in the country, a striking rise for a course only three years old, and it has remained a fixture in national rankings since.