Cedar Crest Park
Designed by A. W. Tillinghast
History
Dallas in 1919 was a city in a hurry to grow up, and its civic leaders understood that a proper municipal golf course belonged on the list of things a serious American city needed. Cedar Crest Park opened that year on the south side of town, along the Trinity River bottoms, as one of the earliest public golf grounds in Texas — a place where the game would not be the property of private clubs alone, but open to any Dallas resident willing to walk eighteen holes.
The city turned to A. W. Tillinghast, already building a national reputation as a golf architect of the first rank, to lay out the course. Tillinghast’s involvement gave Cedar Crest a pedigree far beyond what most municipal projects of the era could claim; he was, in these same years, at work on designs that would become touchstones of American golf. For a public course in the South to carry his name was itself a statement of ambition on Dallas’s part, a signal that municipal golf need not mean modest golf.
Cedar Crest went on to host significant competitive golf in the decades that followed, including editions of the Dallas Open during the 1920s and 1930s, drawing professional fields to a course built for the city’s own citizens. It has remained in continuous operation as a public facility for over a century, weathering the changes in ownership philosophy and municipal budgets common to America’s oldest daily-fee courses, while retaining its founding identity as one of Texas’s pioneering public grounds for the game.
Playing Notes
Cedar Crest sits on rolling terrain along the Trinity River bottoms, and that means uneven stances more often than you'd expect on a municipal track. Walking is manageable if you're in decent shape, though the elevation changes on the back nine will test your legs by the seventeenth hole. Texas wind off the open stretches near the river can turn a mid-iron into a guessing game, so club up and check the flags before committing. The greens run true but aren't lightning fast, which helps if you're still finding your putting stroke, but the fairways narrow in spots where mature trees crowd the corridors, so keep the driver in the bag on holes where position matters more than distance. Bring sunscreen and water regardless of the season, and expect firm, sometimes bare turf in the summer months since this isn't an irrigation-heavy layout. Play smart off the tee, take your medicine when you're out of position, and the round stays enjoyable rather than punishing.