Shady Oaks Country Club

Fort Worth businessman Marvin Leonard founded Shady Oaks Country Club in 1958 on 1220 acres of farmland in what became the Westover Hills area, despite objections from his friend and protégé Ben Hogan, who deemed the site too rugged. Leonard commissioned Robert Trent Jones Sr., the prolific architect behind over 500 courses worldwide including Spyglass Hill and Firestone Country Club, to design the layout following one of the largest earthmoving projects in golf history. Hogan, a frequent visitor and practitioner there, called it his pet course and remained closely associated for decades. The club underwent a renovation by Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore in 1995 and a major redesign by the Australian firm Ogilvy, Cocking & Mead (OCM) starting in 2015, with the main course reopening in October 2020 after construction began in 2019; OCM also developed the nine-hole Little Nine par-3 course on Hogan's former practice ground. No previous names or ownership changes are documented. Shady Oaks has hosted the 2008 USGA U.S. Senior Amateur Championship, the 2014 Texas Golf Association Senior Amateur, numerous USGA and TGA qualifiers, nearly every Northern Texas PGA major, and annual events like the Ben Hogan Junior Cup Matches. Notable members include Texas Golf Hall of Famers Ben Hogan, Marvin Leonard, Chad Campbell, and Angela Stanford, along with current PGA and LPGA pros such as Martin Piller and Gerina Piller. With around 500 golf-privileged members, it maintains a strong contingent of low-handicap players.