Lions Municipal Golf Course

“Muny” is a special project. Ben Crenshaw grew up in Austin, Texas, and used to walk to Lions Municipal to play when he was a boy. It is Austin’s first municipal course, and the first municipal course in the South that voluntarily desegregated. It’s a place that means a lot to a lot of people. A.W. Tillinghast did some of the original design work, and you can see the awesome bones—but Lions was definitely worn out. It’s owned by the University of Texas and leased to the city, but the university had been thinking about developing the land—and losing this icon that has been so important to Austin golf. Coore & Crenshaw took on the work of revitalizing Muny, and I was the on-site design representative whose job it was to make sure all the moving parts worked together. We’re two phases in, and the hope is that the progress made inspires the university to buy into what the course could be once again.