TPC San Antonio (Oaks Course)

A tour course behind a hotel key card.

The Oaks Course at TPC San Antonio is where the PGA Tour stops each spring for the Valero Texas Open, the week before the Masters. It sits in the Cibolo Canyons community on the northern edge of San Antonio, about 20 minutes from the airport, and it is not a daily-fee course. The club calls itself a private resort: you play it as a member, a member’s guest, or a guest of the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort & Spa next door. For a visiting golfer that makes the hotel booking the real tee-time booking, and it makes the Oaks one of the more straightforward tour venues to get onto.

TPC San Antonio (Oaks Course) green fees and tee times.

Book a room at the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country first. Once you have a reservation, call the TPC reservations team on 210-491-5800 to set tee times; resort guests can book up to 60 days in advance. The club does not publish a green fee for hotel guests, so the price is quoted when you call. The simpler route is a TPC stay-and-play package, arranged by the TPC Vacations team on 1-833-752-9872 or through the enquiry form. For arrivals from 20 November to 31 December 2026 the club lists a one-night package with one round on the Oaks or the Canyons from US$569 per person, sharing a double room, with a breakfast buffet for two and a free arrival round or same-day replay round. The club asks you to allow up to 72 business hours for a quote, and up to five days at busy times, so ask early.

The courses at TPC San Antonio (Oaks Course).

Oaks Course (Greg Norman, 2010)

Par 72, 7,435 yards, with six sets of tees, so shorter hitters are not stuck on the tour card. Fairways are TifSport Bermuda and the greens Champions Bermuda in summer, overseeded through the cooler months. Tree-lined fairways alternate with wider holes that give a choice of routes to the green. This is the Valero Texas Open course and the one most visitors come for.

Canyons Course (Pete Dye, 2010)

Par 72, 7,106 yards, laid over more broken ground than the Oaks, with bigger elevation changes and views across a 700-acre nature preserve. It hosted the PGA Tour Champions San Antonio Championship from 2011 to 2015. Packages let you choose either course for each round, and playing both makes the Dye and Norman contrast the point of the trip.

The round, in perspective.

TPC San Antonio opened in January 2010 with two courses, and the Oaks has been the home of the Valero Texas Open since then. Greg Norman designed it, with Sergio Garcia as consultant, and the club presents it as a step away from the modern tournament template towards a more natural look. The result is a par 72 of 7,435 yards that the club describes as intimate, with narrow corridors cut through native oaks, rugged bunkers whose edges imitate the tree canopy, and native grasses at the margins. There is only about 100 feet of fall from the highest point of the Oaks to the lowest, and forced carries on just two holes. One detail matters for visitors: the routing is set so downhill holes play into the prevailing wind and uphill holes play downwind. Each November the fairways and rough are overseeded with a ryegrass and fescue blend, and the greens and tees are treated with Poa trivialis, to prepare for the spring tournament.

Know before you go.

Access

Members, their guests and JW Marriott guests only

Booking window

60 days ahead for resort guests

Tee-time line

210-491-5800

Rental clubs

US$99 plus tax (US$175 for PXG)

Tees

Six sets per course

Overseeding

Oaks overseeded from November

Make the trip work.

Decide on the package or room-only route before you pick dates, since packages bundle a round, breakfast and bag storage, and the advertised prices carry blackout dates and apply only to groups of 11 or fewer. If you fly without clubs, reserve a rental set when you book your tee time: most sets are US$99 plus tax, and PXG sets US$175. The Learning Center, run by Director of Instruction Greg Hiller, has Trackman and SAM PuttLab if you want a lesson before the round. The 23-acre practice facility, with two short-game areas, is included before play on the packages.

San Antonio International (SAT) is the nearest airport; the club says the resort is about 20 minutes from both the airport and downtown. Take US 281 north to the TPC Parkway exit, head east, then follow Marriott Parkway to the entrance at 23808 Resort Parkway. Austin is about 75 miles north, so allow well over an hour once traffic on I-35 is factored in.

Where it is.

Somewhere to settle in.

Staying on site is the condition of play, so the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort & Spa is the base. It sits beside the courses, with the Lantana Spa and the River Bluff Water Park on the grounds, which makes it a workable choice when not everyone in the party plays. Packages include breakfast in the hotel’s Cibolo Moon restaurant. Staying downtown on the River Walk means you cannot book the courses, so save a city night for the start or end of the trip.

Make a trip of it.

Build a Hill Country loop around three resorts: Horseshoe Bay on Lake LBJ, about 50 miles north-west of Austin, plays its three Robert Trent Jones Sr. courses on the same stay-to-play basis, while Lost Pines, east of Austin, sells public tee times online. In San Antonio itself, the Alamo and the River Walk are 20 minutes away, and the four 18th-century missions of the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, link up by trail for an easy bike day.

Find your season.

Spring and autumn suit golf best; summers are long and hot. The Valero Texas Open is played on the Oaks in the week before the Masters, so expect limited availability around late March and early April. Overseeding begins in November, and the ryegrass is there to keep the course green through winter.