There was a time when Seagoville residents did not have to drive across North Texas or pay today’s golf-course prices to enjoy 18 holes. On Bowers Road, a local recreational destination known as Tanglewood Golf Club offered a semi-private championship course, a swimming pool, a snack bar and green fees that now sound almost unbelievable.
A surviving advertisement promoted weekday golf for only $1.50, while a round on weekends and holidays cost $2. The club welcomed daily-fee players and identified H. J. “Herb” Bezner as its golf professional and manager.
Tanglewood may have eventually disappeared from Seagoville’s landscape, but newly located archival material reveals that its history began with an unusually personal idea: a local farmer wanted a golf course where he and his friends could play.
A Farmer Decides to Build a Golf Course
An archived WBAP-TV news script dated August 1, 1959, describes a Seagoville-area farmer constructing a golf course on his own land for himself and his friends. The historical record identifies Herb Bezner in connection with the story. UNT Libraries also preserves accompanying television footage from the report, giving Tanglewood’s story a documented beginning in the late 1950s.
What may have started as a course for Bezner and his friends eventually became a public-facing business substantial enough to advertise itself as a semi-private, 18-hole championship golf course.
The property on Bowers Road in Seagoville and identifies Bezner as both the professional and manager. Although the historical materials found online do not yet establish the club’s exact opening date, ownership structure or final year of operation, they firmly connect Bezner to the course’s creation and management.
Golf Without Country-Club Prices
Tanglewood’s advertised prices offer a remarkable glimpse into another era.
A golfer could play during the week for $1.50. On a Saturday, Sunday or holiday, the green fee rose to $2. There was no dynamic pricing, online reservation charge or premium weekend package. A few dollars placed a golfer on an 18-hole course.
For Seagoville residents, that meant an afternoon of golf could happen close to home. Players did not need to make a long drive into Dallas or secure membership at an exclusive club. They could head to Bowers Road, pay the daily green fee and begin a round.
Tanglewood’s existence also says something about the Seagoville of that period. The community supported not only grocery stores, drive-ins, service stations and department stores, but also a full 18-hole recreational facility.
More Than Fairways and Greens
The course was not Tanglewood’s only attraction. The club also promoted a swimming pool and snack bar, making the property more than a destination for serious golfers. While one member of a family played a round, others could potentially spend time near the pool or stop for refreshments.
The snack bar would have served as Tanglewood’s informal gathering place—the spot where players discussed missed putts, compared scores and settled friendly arguments about what happened on the back nine. Every golf course has a social side, and Tanglewood likely developed its own community of regular players who recognized one another in the parking lot and at the first tee.
The First Hole-in-One at Tanglewood
One piece of the club’s history survives through the life story of Ann Austin Altom, a longtime sports enthusiast from the area. Her 2016 obituary records that she was the first person to make a hole-in-one at Tanglewood Golf Club in Seagoville.
Altom’s achievement also confirms that Tanglewood was more than an unrealized plan or short-lived private experiment. It developed into a recognized golf club where local players competed, practiced and created memories worth preserving decades later.
Who Was Herb Bezner?
The available online evidence identifies Bezner as a Seagoville-area farmer who was building a golf course in 1959 and later served as Tanglewood’s professional and manager. Beyond those details, his story remains incomplete.
That mystery makes Bezner an especially interesting figure in Seagoville history. Turning agricultural land into a golf course would have required planning, equipment, labor and determination. Fairways had to be cleared and maintained. Greens had to be built. Holes had to be designed around the terrain. Water, grass and North Texas weather would have created constant challenges.
Whatever his complete story may be, Bezner helped give Seagoville something unusual: its own 18-hole golf destination.
A Lost Part of Seagoville Recreation
Today, many residents may be surprised to learn that Seagoville once had a semi-private golf club with 18 holes, a swimming pool and a snack bar.
The course is gone, and the surviving online record does not clearly state when it closed or what ultimately happened to the property. That part of the story still needs help from former employees, golfers, nearby residents and the families who spent time there.
Somewhere, there may still be a Tanglewood scorecard tucked inside an old desk. A former golfer may have a photograph from a tournament. A family may possess a membership card, receipt, matchbook or snapshot taken beside the swimming pool. Someone may even remember the hole where Ann Altom made the course’s first ace.
Those artifacts and memories could fill in the gaps left by the historical record.
For now, Tanglewood Golf Club remains one of Seagoville’s most intriguing vanished businesses—a golf course born from a farmer’s ambitious idea, managed by Herb Bezner and remembered for a time when a weekday round cost only $1.50.
