Clarendon Country Club

Clarendon Country Club sits in the Texas Panhandle, in the small ranching community of Howardwick — a town so close to Clarendon proper that the 2 are essentially one. This is the High Plains in its purest form: wide open skies, persistent wind, and a landscape shaped more by cattle operations and red-dirt draws than by the kind of manicured resort geography most golfers associate with the game. Playing golf out here carries its own particular character.

Wind is the great equalizer on any Panhandle course, and a par 72 layout in this part of Texas will play very differently depending on which direction it's blowing — and it is almost always blowing something. The flat-to-gently-rolling terrain typical of this region means the course likely rewards straight ball-strikers who can manage trajectory, while the dry climate keeps turf firm and fairways fast underfoot.

As a country club serving a rural West Texas community, this is member-driven golf — the kind of place where the same regulars have been trading the same Nassau bets for decades.