New Tom Doak-designed course in Texas hugs the landscape beautifully
MOUNT ENTERPRISE, Texas I was walking through the parking lot of the Jalapeno Tree Mexican restaurant on my way to a diet-busting combo platter after a hot June day of golf, when a man saw my Bandon Dunes hat and waved me down at the door. He was on his way to a booth with his wife and young daughter, but he had questions.Had I been to Oregon to play golf at the famed resort? Which course was my favorite? Are the courses hard? Whats the weather really like? The man was wearing a Titleist hat and a polo, and he was a hard-core golf nut. My kind of people.His wife and daughter went ahead to their table while we chatted golf for several minutes. You know, somebodys building a new course north of town, he mentioned offhand.As a matter of fact, I did know. I had spent all day traipsing around the in-development property at Wild Spring Dunes, playing 18 and shooting sunset drone video. I asked him if he knew the new development was being led by Michael Keiser, son of Bandon Dunes founder Michael Keiser? No way, he said with a smile, as if coastal Oregon was soon to be transported straight to East Texas.In this region of rolling hills and piney forests, there are several options for golf but none of the big-name destination resorts that have cropped up elsewhere around the United States in recent decades, several of which have involved Michael Keiser. Wild Spring Dunes, with its first course designed by highly acclaimed architect Tom Doak and with more golf on the way, is like nothing else in this eastern stretch of the Lone Star State.Best of all: Unlike many courses to open or that soon will following golfs post-COVID boom, Wild Spring Dunes will be public-access. Already being played by founding members, Wild Spring Dunes will open to the public Sept. 8, and tee times for 2027 are available.Michael Keiser who along with his brother, Chris, developed Sand Valley in Wisconsin has plans for three such new destinations in all, with Wild Spring Dunes joined by Rodeo Dunes (one course open, more to come) near Denver and Old Shores (one course to open in 2027, more to come) in the Florida Panhandle. Each will feature layouts by several of the top designers in the game.At the 2,400-acre Wild Spring Dunes property that formerly served as a hunting lease, Doak was given a rolling, sandy tract that features several deep gullies carved by creeks. Never too steep and never really flat, this type of terrain is perfect for golf. The holes were laid upon this landscape close to the ground, with no feel of ever being manufactured. They incorporate the creeks where appropriate and play with ample width alongside stretches of pines and hardwoods.Doaks course at Wild Spring Dunes embraces the landscape with so much sense of place that I would expect the flagsticks to hum in the breeze with a Texas twang. The most common term to describe such golf design is minimalism. Doak and other top architects have said before that they want a course to fit naturally into a landscape without superficial or artificial intrusions, and thats a better description. Doak showed his mastery of such design at Wild Spring Dunes, where long slopes and East Texas topography create plenty of interest.But dont confuse minimalism or better said, naturalism wherever possible and the frequent use of wide corridors such as those found at Wild Spring Dunes with a coddling ease of use for players. Doak introduced plenty of quirk to keep players interested, especially off the tees.It starts at No. 1, a 408-yard par 4 that launches players off a giant mound known to locals at Mount Baldy its the steepest part of the property, and its downhill. A series of bunkers and sandy scrapes guards the right side of the wide fairway of the gentle dogleg-right closer to the tee, but its a larger trap that juts into the fairway from the left farther downrange that will concern better players. This trap essentially forces right-handed players to hit a perfect cut off the tee, or play intentionally short of the sand. Theres a choice to be made, right from the start.Its more of the same at No. 2, a dogleg-right par 5 of 533 yards. The eye is drawn to a possible shortcut up the right, past a single tall pine set at the fairways edge with sand, rough and more trees farther right. Theres plenty of room left to accept nearly any type of drive, but better players will want to challenge that right side to set up a possible second shot toward the green. Farther down the fairway, the fairway pinches, the width seemingly evaporating under the Texas sun as a centerline bunker forces players to think hard about where to play a layup.The theme continues throughout Wild Spring Dunes, the fairways wide but Doak asking plenty of questions about where a player wants to land a ball. Hit the right side of No. 14 fairway? You might be blocked by trees on the approach to the par 4. Drive up the left at the short par-4 17th? A whole string of scrubby, sandy misery awaits. Drive left on the par-5 18thpast a centerline stand of spindly trees, or go much farther right where the sightlines are more obscured? You might quickly discover how quickly all that width to the left tumbles into more pines.Its brilliant stuff, the at-times width of these fairways lulling players into comfort that sometimes just vanishes into sand or trees. Combined with the firm, bouncy fairway turf of Stadium zoysia grass, these fairways pack plenty of surprises.Michael Keiser said he shouldnt be surprised by anything Doak comes up with, the pair having combined to build new courses before such as Sedge Valley and the Lido at Sand Valley, but the tee shots at Wild Spring Dunes stood out for the golf-obsessed developer.You know, it's wide enough for me to go slop it around, but it requires a good player to shape it in different directions on different holes and hit different angles, Keiser said. He came through, and I'm delighted with it.For players who find the fairways, the greens and their surrounds often appear fairly inviting. Doak showed plenty of restraint, typically allowing natural contours and firm ground to do much of the dirty work for errant balls. Most of these greens were left open for balls played from the proper spots to bounce on or roll off toward tightly mowed surrounds or sand. The limited number of traps around these greens are strategically placed and typically built low with gathering slopes, forcing timid players to a wider and safer side even if that might mean a missed green.The greens themselves often feature overall tilts with plenty of internal contours without every becoming too extreme. Grassed with Tif Eagle Bermuda grass, these putting surfaces are always interesting without ever being impossible.A prime example comes at the 16th, where a long and fairly straight par 4 concludes alongside a hill to the right. The green perfectly mimics the lower stretch of this hill, dropping from right to left toward a narrow stretch of fairway-height grass that narrows toward the back of the putting surface and the stand of trees beyond. From the fairway, this approach shot might be lengthy but looks fairly innocuous, with just one bunker guarding the front right of the green. But upon landing, balls want to take that slope off the hill and dive left across the putting surface. Theres a lot going on here once a ball lands, but this tilted green ties into the hill so naturally that the bogeys are served with a whisper instead of a scream.It all combines to serve up a style of golf new to this part of Texas. And this Doak course is just the start at Wild Spring Dunes. The clubhouse hasnt been built yet, players instead rendezvousing at a temporary pro-shop trailer that offers a covered patio for lunch. Its all brand new and still in the works. Eventually, that clubhouse will be built, as will the driving range. Home lots are for sale now, with the houses to be tucked back and away from Doaks course so as not to intrude.A second full-sized 18-hole course is already in the works with a design by the esteemed team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw. This layout features steeper terrain in places than does Doaks course, playing alongside and across ravines that were practically hidden in the trees.That course just keeps getting better and better as we clear more and more of the holes, Michael Keiser said. We knew it was a really dramatic piece of land with these huge ravines, but some of the holes away from those ravines that we sort of thought would require a little work turned out to have some of the most interesting contours on the whole property. So that's been this amazing surprise for Bill and then for the rest of us of just, some of the micro-contours that existed in the woods before we cleared them.Jimmy Craig, who currently is designing the second full-sized course at Rodeo Dunes and who recently completed the Commons short course at Sand Valley, also has plans for a 12-hole, Commons style course at Wild Spring Dunes. Expect the resort to include a par-3 course at some point, as well. Keiser also said theres room for a third course, possibly along the lines of Doaks shorter Sedge Valley layout at Sand Valley, not that theres any rush to get it built. And theres more land available for purchase for even more golf down the road.Keiser also said theres one new twist planned from architect Clyde Johnson, who nailed it as the lead associate at Doaks recently opened Old Petty course at Cabot Highlands in Scotland. Keiser said Johnson has laid out a 36-hole putting course in a meadow, and this will be different than the standard big green-style of putting courses that have become popular in the U.S. in recent years. Instead, Johnsons course will feature fairways of sorts, with players putting down defined and independent corridors.It's routed like a golf course, so that's going to be really different, Keiser said. We're excited about that.Theres a lot of excitement to go around, and plenty of projects at Wild Spring Dune to fuel it. This type of modern and ambitious resort development is by and large new for Texas, which features a long history in the game and plenty of great players. Heres hoping that man at the restaurant gets his go-round soon.Jason Luskis Golfweek's travel and golf course architecture editor, as well as the print magazine's creative director. He has written for and designed Golfweek for more than two decades.This article originally appeared on Golfweek: New Tom Doak-designed course in Texas hugs the landscape beautifully
Czech
Arabic
French
Spanish
Portuguese
Deutsch
Turkish
Dutch
Italiano
Russian
Romaian
Portuguese (Brazil)
Greek