The Austin American-Statesman recently gave a glowing review to The Club at ConCan, a Roy Bechtol-designed course in the Frio River Valley of south Texas.
As part of the Frio Country Resort, the golf course was designed by Bechtol and his former partner Randy Russell to give tourists a reason to venture to the region when dove were out of season and the Frio was too low for tubing.
The American-Statesman feature, written by Kevin Robbins and illustrated with photographs from Ralph Barrera, talks about a guys-only golf trip to ConCan in spring of 2008. Robbins called ConCan “far enough away from home to feel like we'd gone somewhere but close enough to keep expenses low. It was,” Robbins writes, “like Pine Dunes in Frankston or Squaw Valley in Glen Rose, impossibly efficient: Good golf, good beds, good price – a place for good friends.”
Robbins compared his trip to ConCan with one he made to Bandon Dunes in 2005. “Bandon Dunes was pure, unvarnished golf on coastal bluffs so remote the only noises you hear are the Pacific surf and the snap of flagsticks,” Robbins writes. “ConCan was pure, unvarnished golf on rocky, landlocked terrain populated by javelinas, cedars and steep hills so inaccessible there are no roads to the top.”
Bechtol says he receives many such remarks on the course. “Real golfers, those that have played on some of the most famous courses in the world, come back from ConCan and tell me it is their new favorite course,” Bechtol says. “The golf at ConCan is honest and challenging, and that’s one of the things that make in memorable.”