San Antonio, Texas. The Military City Golf Trip

San Antonio Texas is known as the Military City, with four bases in the area.   Three of the bases have golf courses and it is our goal to play every military golf course in the country and this is a great place to start.

Our trip started with three Army retirees, Col. Bill Logel, Ltc. Tom Wilczak and Msg. John Zook arriving on an early morning flight from Chicago.  The fourth golfer is a good old Texas boy named Earl.  He drove down from the Dallas area to pick us up at the airport and complete our foursome.  Earl has a vast knowledge of the area and had some great places to eat.

We checked in at the now closed Brooks City AF Base on the south side of town early, and decided to check out the golf course at Lackland AFB.  We thought it would be a great idea to play the front 9 holes, and come back next day to play the back 9 holes that was the plan.

A torrential rain storm turned the little creek at Lackland’s Gateway Golf Course into a large lake and all of the courses in the area were closed.  The storm shut down the Velaro Open, a longtime San Antonio PGA event.  So on to plan two, site seeing and shopping.

 

Sunshine on the 3^rd day enabled us to get in our first full round on the trip at Sam Houston.  There are two courses, the Salado-Del-Rio course and the La Loma course; we played the La Loma course.  This course is the shorter of the two courses with many scenic views.  That afternoon we stopped by the Gateway Course to complete the back nine holes we missed because of the storm.  Famous Texas BBQ was on the menu for that evening.

Next on the agenda were the Randolph AFB Oaks Golf Course and another golf treasure.  The course is a typical Texas course, flat, open fairways small greens and lots of Texas wildlife. The base is a major flight training facility of the Air Force, that means constant loud jet and propeller noise from aircraft take-offs, fly byes, and landings, distractions are normal.  Mexican food at Papasitos and a late night cigar ended the day for us.

On our last day we played the second course at Fort Sam Houston, the Salado-Del-Rio course - a real challenging course, with more beautiful scenery.  We ended the day with a great meal at a steak house in old town San Antonio.

The morning of our last day, after breakfast at a well-known pancake house we packed, thanked our friend Earl for all of his help, and checked in for our flight back to Chicago.

Our first military golf trip was to Wright-Patterson AFB, in Dayton, OH. This is where we thought up the idea to play all of the military golf course in the country, all185of them.   San Antonio, the “Military City” was our second and the beginning of the vision to play all of the military golf courses in the United States. As noted above, there are four very nice military courses in the greater San Antonio area.

There are many cities throughout the country that have multiple military bases and golf courses; this was just the beginning of many more trips to come.  We take advantage of our Retired Military benefits by using the military facilities as much as possible. They vary by base but generally include Distinguished Visitor Quarters (DV), Temporary Military Lodging (TML), golf courses, Commissaries, Exchanges and any other post clubs and activities.