Moody Gardens Golf Course

Moody Gardens Golf Course is the City of Galveston's municipal course on the west side of the island, near the Moody Gardens attractions. In 2007 the city agreed to hand management of its aging muni to Moody Gardens, and the Moody Foundation funded a roughly $17 million overhaul by the Houston firm Jacobsen Hardy, led by Tour player Peter Jacobsen and instructor Jim Hardy. The work was close to a new course laid over the old one: crews stripped the surface, raised the grade three to five feet, rerouted the first five holes, added 71 white-sand bunkers and built a much larger practice range. The course reopened in 2008 with salt-tolerant paspalum turf, a choice proven just three months later when Hurricane Ike left it under saltwater and the grass survived. The city still owns the course.