Barton Creek Driving Range

i’ll only mark it down from 5 stars for one reason. I don’t know why, but beyond about the 25 yard mark on the driving range, the range grass slopes downward to where you can’t see the ground anymore (kind of like a great big valley) and you can only see the grass and the flags on the other side maybe starting at the 200 yard mark again. So if you’re hitting a big wood or a driver, you can see where your ball lands but if you’re using a high iron then you won’t be able to see exactly where the ball is landing because it’s below your view.
The nice parts: The driving range is free! The bottled water is free! I assume that is restricted to hotel guests and people that have a tee-​time but if it’s not then it’s definitely worth a trek up here to hit 100 balls free of charge. The other major high mark is that you are hitting off real grass. The grass tends to be a bit dry and therefore a bit hard but it’s better than hitting off a mat. The best thing about hitting off real grass is that you can observe your divot. You want to make sure that the entire divot is in front of the ball with the center of the divot about 5 inches in front of the ball. You don’t want any divot behind the ball — which would signify that you hit the ground behind the ball (very bad!). I was hitting about my 40^th ball before I realized what a great training feature this was to a driving range. From then on, I took careful note — after I observed the flight of the ball — to reset myself and figure out if the divot was correctly in front of the ball, not too deep or too shallow.
Oh yes, and as usual, they give you a hard time if you don’t wear a collared shirt so wear one.