MUNY celebrates 100 years: The past, present and future of Austin's first public golf course

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Lions Municipal Golf Course, known informally as MUNY, was the first public golf course in the city of Austin and the first course to desegregate in the South. This upcoming October, MUNY celebrates its 100th anniversary. 

The course is located at 2901 Enfield Road in west Austin, nestled between Tarrytown, Lady Bird Lake and the Tom Miller Dam. It rests on the Brackenridge Tract — a piece of land owned by the University of Texas. The City of Austin currently leases the land from the university to maintain the course. 

Although the course did not officially open until November 1924, the 100th anniversary celebration is slotted for Oct. 3, 2024. According to a spokesperson of the MUNY Conservancy -- a group dedicated to the preservation and restoration of Lions -- 2024 has been a year-long celebration for the course. Events like Imagine MUNY III at ACL Live, the Forever Green Tournament and the NAACP Press Conference at Lions kicked off the celebration earlier this year.

The Lions Club of Austin and the MUNY Conservancy are hosting the Centennial Celebration at Lions Golf Course. The anniversary party will be an all-day event, open to the public. The planned festivities include a parade, flyovers and a charity golf tournament supporting local children with vision impairments.

A full schedule of events can be seen below.

Mary Arnold -- 50 years of advocacy

The centennial undoubtedly warrants celebration for Austin’s golfers, but for local activist Mary Arnold, MUNY's significance extends beyond love for the sport.

Arnold is a member of the Save Historic Muny District Board, an entity chartered by the state legislature to connect the City of Austin with the University of Texas on the issue of MUNY’s preservation.

The struggle between the University of Texas and local advocates over the Brackenridge Tract has existed for 50 years, as Arnold knows all too well. She has fought for the course’s preservation for over half a century, beginning as a participant in the original Save MUNY movement in 1973.

The Save MUNY movement emerged in response to attempts by the University of Texas to dissolve the lease to the golf course. The University of Texas explained its financial reasoning behind the desire to terminate the lease in the Brackenridge Tract Task Force report. According to the report, the university leases the course to the City of Austin "at a rental rate that is substantially below what the property could generate were it used for other purposes."

KXAN reached out to the University of Texas system's board of regents for a comment on this story but did not receive a response.

According to Arnold, the Save MUNY movement was born to rebut the removal attempts and keep the Brackenridge Tract as a permanent home for Lions Golf Course. In light of its 100th anniversary, Arnold delighted in the chance to recount the history of MUNY’s creation, its involvement in the Civil Rights Movement and the work for its preservation.

Building Lions – the early 20th Century

According to the MUNY Conservancy and Arnold, the history of MUNY’s creation happened as follows:

In 1910, Col. George Washington Brackenridge donated over 500 acres of riverfront property to the University of Texas. During the Civil War, Col. Brackenridge was a Unionist living in Confederate Texas who was forced to flee the state. Upon his return, the donation of the Brackenridge Tract was just one of his many philanthropic endeavors throughout Texas.

Fourteen years later, in 1924, the Lions Club of Austin leased a sizable chunk of the Brackenridge Tract from the university to build a golf course. Arnold said the course’s construction changed the landscape of golf in Austin.

“Lions was the first public golf course in the city," Arnold said.

According to Arnold, the Lions Club earned the enthusiastic support of the university’s board of regents at the time.

“The Lions Club and the City of Austin had contributed money they needed to create UT’s Memorial Football Stadium,” Arnold said.

With the patronage of the university, the Lions Club got to work constructing what began as a nine-hole course. By the end of the year, the Austin Lions Club completed construction and opened Austin Municipal Golf Course to the public. 

In 1936, the Lions Club transferred the lease to the City of Austin. During this time, the United States was still recovering from the Great Depression. When New Deal programs like the Works Progress Administration, or WPA, sought to combat the Depression, Arnold noted that MUNY’s development helped in the nationwide effort to re-employ Americans.

“The WPA put people back to work building picnic tables at Zilker Park and rest areas at the golf course. Some of those structures are still around today,” Arnold said.

The WPA built three storm shelters at MUNY in the late 1930s, all of which remain on the property today.

Integration -- MUNY in the Civil Rights-era South

In 1950, Austin was a segregated city, along with the rest of the Jim Crow South. Even after the Supreme Court’s decision in Sweat v. Painter, ordering the desegregation of the University of Texas Law School, most public facilities were still restricted for Black Austinites.

MUNY was no different. 

Black people were accepted onto the course to work as caddies but were strictly prohibited from playing the course. One of these Black caddies was a young man named General Marshall. Though he passed away in 2020, Marshall was highly educated, a thoroughly decorated golfer and a fierce spokesperson for the Save MUNY initiative.

In their childhood, Marshall and William Bacon -- a friend and fellow caddie -- would walk to MUNY from their homes in nearby Clarksville, a majority Black neighborhood, to carry bags for 85 cents a round.

According to the MUNY Conservancy, one day in late 1950, Bacon saw two Black caddies teeing off on hole 18. Arnold said they were caught by a course employee, who phoned the mayor asking what should be done.

“The mayor at the time was Taylor Glass, and he called up a couple city council members. He told them, ‘I think they ought to just let them play. It’s a big space,’ and the boys were allowed to finish,” Arnold said.

On that day in 1950, MUNY became the first golf course in the American South to peacefully integrate. Less than a year later, in April 1951, Austin City Council publicly recognized the desegregation of Lions Golf Course.

'Save MUNY' -- a 50-year-long fight

According to Arnold, after the course was formally integrated, it became a hub for Black golfers across Texas and around the country. World-famous heavyweight champion boxer Joe Louis played two rounds at Lions, first in 1951, and again in 1953, nearly breaking par his second time at the course. 

According to Holly Reed, the secretary of the MUNY Conservancy, black golfers like Louis challenged the narrative that golf was a "white-only" sport.

“Joe Louis spent more time playing golf than he did training,” Reed said.

“In fact, his trainers were very concerned because he was spending so much time out on the golf course that he wasn’t preparing for his matches,” Reed added.

While golfers of all races from around Austin, and around the country, were given the opportunity to enjoy the facilities at Lions, those facilities were first endangered in 1972, according to Arnold.

Arnold recalled a letter from the University of Texas Board of Regents announcing its intention to let the lease agreement with the City of Austin expire. On neighborhood activist Virginia Bedinger's initiative, the original Save MUNY movement was formed.  

“She was a redhead. She had a degree in public relations from Walla Walla, Washington, and she went to work. She was a real fiery person. It was wonderful,” Arnold said. 

One of Bedinger’s methods, Arnold remembered, was Save MUNY announcements sent out in a local newspaper. “You would cut it out, fill it out, and send it back to [Virginia] saying ‘we want to save the golf course,’” Arnold said.

Thanks to the determination of Bedinger, and the widespread neighborhood support of the course, the efforts of the original Save MUNY movement were ultimately successful, according to Arnold. In December 1973, the University of Texas struck a new lease agreement with the City of Austin.

The lease agreement signed in 1973 was designed to last until the last day of March 1987, according to the MUNY Conservancy timeline. Arnold detailed how the Save MUNY movement was more organized by the time the new agreement was set to expire.

Arnold applauded Bedinger’s work as key to the consolidation of like-minded advocates in defense of the course.

“She saved it in ‘73. But we knew we would have to save it again in the '80s. So we had this beautiful event on the patio at Lions,” Arnold said.

The event was successful in rallying supporters of the golf course. The City of Austin re-negotiated with the University of Texas, and in 1989, the lease was amended to last through 2019. 

Holly Reed - Save MUNY in the 21st Century

As Arnold flipped through a photo album from the patio fundraiser -- pointing out friends, family and Lions legends like General Marshall -- Holly Reed described changes that took place in the 1980s. Reed, president of the West Austin Neighborhood Group, secretary of the MUNY Conservancy and member of Austin’s Lions Club, is triply invested in MUNY's preservation.

She explained how alongside the 20-year extension to the lease, in 1987, UT and the City of Austin entered into the Brackenridge Development Agreement. With a chuckle, Reed referred to the hefty 141-page land-use agreement as some “fun night-time reading,” and noted that it is still in effect today.

According to Reed, the most important section of the document is the cancellation clause. It outlines that if the development agreement is dissolved, the lease to the golf course dissolves with it. 

Despite the dangers it faced in the back half of the 20th century, the course was preserved twice through temporary lease renewals. Although the effort to preserve MUNY lacked a permanent solution, according to Reed, it gained a unified and coherent defender with the Save MUNY movement.

Plans for redevelopment

In the 2000s, the University of Texas began making plans to revitalize the Brackenridge Tract. 

In 2006, the university’s Board of Regents formed the Brackenridge Tract Task Force. This group was chartered to investigate the current usage of the Tract and make recommendations about potential alternative uses. 

The next year, the task force released findings in The Brackenridge Tract Task Force Report. The report suggested that the tract could be put to different use in a master development plan, more in line with the terms of the original deed put forth by Col. Brackenridge.

According to the report, Brackenridge’s original donation was made with the express intent of advancing university education, and the land was to be held “in trust for the benefit of the University of Texas.”

In light of that vision, the task force recommended that, in 2019, the Brackenridge Development Agreement should expire and the golf course lease should expire along with it. 

Citing growing financial pressures, the university proposed that a new master plan be implemented to utilize the land of the Brackenridge Tract in a more "exciting, creative, and fiscally-responsible way." In 2008, the UT Board of Regents hired a New York firm to conceptualize the tract as a hybrid residential and commercial district. 

As the university’s vision of what should be done with the land became more solidified, resistance to the plan emerged in tandem. The Save MUNY movement reared its head for the third time, and took measures to spotlight the course’s historical significance and to preserve it permanently. 

Markers of historical significance

With the help of the Save MUNY movement, the course applied to be considered as a place of historical significance. In 2009, the golf course was awarded a state subject marker by the Texas Historical Commission. In 2016, MUNY was added to the National Register of Historic places due to its significance to the Civil Rights movement.

Later in 2016, the National Trust for Historic Preservation designated MUNY as one of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. In the years leading up to 2019, other organizations, like Preservation Texas and The Cultural Landscape Foundation, also labeled Lions Golf Course as a threatened historical site.

As the 1989 lease’s expiration date approached in 2019, Reed said that two groups emerged which helped prevent the course’s removal. 

Firstly, the State Legislature passed Senate Bill 2553, a measure that created the Save Historic MUNY District. Brought forth by then-Senator (now Austin Mayor) Kirk Watson, the legislation created a district that would facilitate purchasing the golf course from the University of Texas. Reed says the long-term aim of the district was the permanent preservation of MUNY.

“The legislation was created to preserve MUNY as a historic 18-hole public golf course, urban green space, or a combination of both,” Reed said.

Secondly, the MUNY Conservancy was formed to raise funds to buy the 141-acre piece of land.

Although the two organizations are distinct from one another, Reed emphasized how they have worked in tandem for the course’s preservation. 

“We feel like these two organizations really represent the citizens of Austin who like the course and want to save it,” Reed said.

In 2019, in response to the community’s efforts, the City of Austin negotiated another extension to the Brackenridge Development Agreement with the University. However, Reed says since 2019, the golf course has only survived through a precarious relationship with the university.

Saving MUNY today -- the danger & the debate

Although the 2019 deadline for the golf course’s removal was averted, Reed said the danger the course faces is still looming. 

“The golf course lease is on a rolling month-to-month basis,” Reed said.

The current agreement with the university requires a five-month notice of cancellation. If that notice is given, the city would have those five months to shut down operations at the course. 

The danger of cancellation springs from the value of the land that Lions occupies. According to Arnold, the city currently pays the university $500,000 each year to lease the 141 acres the course rests on. The Brackenridge Tract Task Force Report emphasized that leasing the land for a public golf course generates substantially less value than what the centrally-located property could be used for instead.

Reed acknowledges the university’s fiduciary responsibility to its stakeholders but argues that the course provides non-monetary benefits to the University of Texas and the greater Austin area.

“The university needs to be compensated for their land. But preserving the course would be beneficial to UT beyond the money it would receive from selling the land,” Reed said.

She describes MUNY as a community gathering place, a home to 15 junior high and high school teams and a priceless open green space in a growing urban city.

Reed also thinks preserving Lions is an opportunity for the university to protect the city’s history. 

“It sends a message to the country that the University of Texas cares about preserving Civil Rights history,” Reed said.

From 2024 to 2124 -- The future of MUNY

For advocates of the course's conservation, the anniversary is bigger than a simple celebration. Beyond the opportunity to recognize and celebrate the course’s history, the centennial gives them a chance to envision what the next 100 years will look like at MUNY.

Holly Reed reflected on the opportunities for progress available to the course in the coming century. She highlighted the MUNY Conservancy’s plans to renovate the course and restore it to its original layout. She discussed the possibility of more non-golf opportunities at the course including farmer’s markets, walking trails and community days.

Reed also hinted at the possibility of a new clubhouse, allowing the old one to be converted into a museum. She noted that the effort to build a better MUNY for future generations has already begun with the construction of the course’s newest practice putting green just this past year.

Reed is hopeful that the course can find a permanent solution for its preservation. She’s not picky on how the course is saved, whether through financial or political action, just so long as it's saved.

“I would love for it to remain a historic golf course, and I can’t think of any more important assets than preserving history and preserving green space for humanity,” Reed said.

Lions' course manager Erik Lopez also cited his concern for the land, comparing a loss of MUNY in Austin to the loss of Central Park in New York.

“It’s a gem. If you mess with this land then you are never going to get it back,” Lopez said.

He is optimistic for a future where the course still serves as a hub of inclusivity for golf. Reflecting on the opportunities he received from MUNY, he explained his hopes for the course 100 years from now. 

“Hopefully it still gives anybody and everybody a chance to play. No matter your race, creed, or financial status. No matter what is in your pocket -- everybody deserves that chance,” Lopez said.

Looking back on the course’s 100-year history, and her own 50 years fighting in its defense, Arnold envisions a future where MUNY still serves the people of Austin. Despite the course’s uncertain future, she has faith that a permanent solution is just over the horizon.  

“I hope that the golf course is still here. And I hope that the kids and the golfers are still enjoying, and benefiting from what has happened so far, and what will happen in the future.” Arnold said.