Maridoe Golf Club

Maridoe Golf Club is the private Steve Smyers and Patrick Andrews design north of Dallas that PGA Tour players regularly describe as the toughest course they play. Opened in 2017 on the site of the former Columbian Country Club in Carrollton, Maridoe carries an 80.5 course rating and a 155 slope from the back tees at 7,834 yards, numbers that put it among the most demanding courses in the United States and almost certainly the hardest in Texas.

Access is the first thing to know. Maridoe is strictly private. There is no reciprocal programme, no stay-and-play arrangement, and no public path to a tee time. You need a member invitation, full stop.

Water is the defining feature. It is in play on fourteen of the eighteen holes, and Smyers used it as a genuine penal hazard rather than decorative framing. Creeks, ponds, and lakes intrude on landing zones, front greens, and approach corridors in ways that demand precision with every full swing. Spray the ball and you will lose golf balls at a rate no other course in the region can match.

The greens compound the difficulty. They are small by modern standards, fast, and contoured with internal movement that creates distinct pin positions, each playing as a different hole. You read these greens from the fairway, not the putting surface, and an approach without a plan often leaves a putt that tests patience as much as technique.

Length is part of the equation, but Smyers did not lean on it alone. Some fairways offer width that invites an aggressive line to a cleaner approach angle. The conservative play often leaves a longer, harder shot in. That tension between risk and reward operates on nearly every hole and gives the round a cumulative intensity that builds as you play.

Maridoe is hard because every shot matters and the margin between a good shot and a penalised one is narrower here than anywhere else in Texas. If you ever get the invite, take it.