Wichita Falls Commissions Brauer To
Transform
Weeks Park Golf Course's Style and Image
by: Mark Leslie
WICHITA FALLS, Texas (Nov. 1, 2006) - After seeing the
creative touch that Jeffrey D. Brauer used to transform Carrollton,
Texas's Indian Creek Golf Course into one of the Best New Public Courses
of the Year in 2004, city officials here engaged the Arlington architect
to work the same magic on their own Weeks Park Golf Course (GC).
For Brauer, who in a rarity had two courses consecutively
named Best New Upscale Public Course of the Year by Golf Digest in
2004 and 2005, the project will be a homecoming of sorts. Weeks Park,
designed around 1924 by an unknown architect, had nine greens renovated
by Brauer shortly after he opened his own firm, Golfscapes, in 1984.
But the course, struggling to maintain self-sufficiency,
has suffered from a lot of deferred maintenance and its finances have
fallen into the red.
Wichita Falls engaged John Wait of Sirius Advisors to
perform an independent study, after which the city decided to upgrade
both the infrastructure and image of the course. Assistant City Manager
Matt Benoit, who is in charge of the project for the city, said it
hired Brauer because "we were impressed by the level of thought
and detail that Jeff had put into the comprehensive plan. He had a
strong knowledge and interest in the project and in Weeks Park in
general."
"Our interest is restoring Weeks Park Golf Course
to self-sufficiency," Benoit added. "That sounds easy, but
the crux is that we have to put out a product that is attractive enough,
fun enough, interesting enough that we can charge higher fees to earn
revenues that meet expenditures.
"So there is an important element there for the
golf course architect because we're all aware that not just any renovation
is going to work. It has to result in something that people are willing
to pay more to play on. Jeff's challenge is to set it apart from the
competition."
That competition, Brauer said, is country-style golf
courses that have sought the bottom dollar and "never tested
the idea that golfers would pay more for quality golf."
"We want to give this a big-city style, and we
think it will draw golfers from a long way away," he added.
After Brauer's reconstruction of the Creek Course at
Indian Creek Golf Course, the city reported that play increased by
about 6,000 rounds a year and the course went from an operating deficit
to a positive cash flow.
To accomplish this at Wichita Falls, Brauer said he
is basically "blowing up" the old golf course. There is
enough open land to rearrange six holes where the front nine now stand
to add a driving range and short-game practice area that the course
has never possessed. He will reroute the back nine to improve the
flow of the course and lengthen it to distances of 7,000, 6,600, 6,300,
5,800 and 4,800 yards from five sets of tees.
"After we reroute those holes, we will have all
new greens, tees and fairway bunkers," Brauer said. He may also
add another set of back tees to lengthen some holes for the prestigious
Texas-Oklahoma Junior Tournament that Weeks Park hosts each year.
Benoit said the city has allocated $3.6 million for
the golf course reconstruction and another $700,000 to remodel the
clubhouse and improve the cart barn and maintenance complex.
Benoit said the city expects to put out bids for construction
in late December, get the course under construction next February
and reopen the new Wichita Falls Golf Course next October.
Brauer-designed golf courses have won national accolades
recently. The Quarry at Giants Ridge in Biwabik, Minn., and The Wilderness
at Fortune Bay in Tower, Minn., were both named by Golf Digest as
the Best New Upscale Public Course for 2004 and 2005, respectively.
Meanwhile, his Avocet Course at Wild Wing Plantation in Myrtle Beach,
S.C., was a Golf Digest best new course winner; and Colbert Hills
Golf Club is rated Kansas's No. 1 Daily Fee Facility and among the
Top 10 university courses in the country. A former president of the
American Society of Golf Course Architects, Brauer can be contacted
at 2225 E. Randol Mill Rd. #210, Arlington, TX 76011; telephone 817-640-7275.
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SAND CREEK STATION LOADS UP WITH HONORS
by: Mark Leslie
NEWTON, Kan. (Nov. 16, 2006) — Rarely does a golf course project
win awards outside the golf industry. But the city of Newton’s
Sand Creek Station Golf Course, which opened in July, has already
won two environmental and engineering awards for its accomplishments
as well as national golf recognition.
On Nov. 9 the American Council of Engineering Companies presented
Newton City Manager James Heinicke the latest of these awards, one
of the organization’s four City Public Improvement Awards for
2006 in Kansas. Heinicke accepted the honor for the efforts of City
Engineer and Director of Public Works Suzanne Loomis, PE, and golf
course architect Jeffrey D. Brauer.
“This was a once-in-a-lifetime project,” said Loomis who
was the project coordinator and oversaw all the construction. “It
was quite an experience melding the engineering components, take a
more broad-brush approach to things. It ended up being a lovely project
and something we can brag on in Newton.
“That’s because Jeff has the ability to design a golf course
that is very appealing aesthetically and, from the players’ angle,
is a challenge to play. Jeff was a huge part of this award. Without
the golf course there would be no award. He’s the one who worked
the magic.”
From his Arlington, Tex., offices Brauer called Sand Creek Station
“a prototype for how you can develop affordable golf.” He
was referring to the innovative public-private venture in which Wichita
land developers J. Russell Co. and Ritchie Associates, who owned 170
acres in Newton, bought another 280 acres from the city and deeded
back 180 acres on which to build the golf course. This left the developers
with 270 acres for their Sand Creek neighborhood.
The developers made a $600,000 “development contribution”
to Newton, plus another $2,400 per housing lot as well as the usual
water, sewer, streets and drainage assessments. Those assessments,
along with the new property taxes generated by Sand Creek, will pay
for the debt service for the golf club, while operating revenues should
exceed operating costs, with the excess also paying down debt service,
Johnson said.
“The benefit of the project,” Brauer said, “is how
we used golf to spur a nice development and increase the tax base.
People have been talking for years about how we need more affordable
golf. In Newton we’ve helped them achieve that and improve their
community at the same time.
“Environmentally,” he added, “we’re getting rid
of effluent, detaining the storm drainage, and using the golf course
to provide what will probably wind up being the nicest community in
town.”
Sand Creek Station was named this month as one of five finalists for
Daily Fee Development of the Year by Golf, Inc.
The project’s gray-water improvement system also recently won
Project of the Year in the Environmental category from the Kansas
chapter of the American Public Works Association.
Presenting the latest award, the American Council of Engineering Companies
recognized Sand Creek Station not for its engineering excellence but
for its benefit to the citizens of its community.
City Planner Tim Johnson said, “If we did it again, there is
virtually nothing fundamental we would change.”
City officials estimate that construction of 100 single-family homes
will generate $11.6 million in new income to local business and workers
in the first year of construction, and $2.8 million every year thereafter;
create 250 jobs in the community during the first year of construction
and 65 jobs every year thereafter; and will bring $1.4 million in
additional local taxes and fees in that first year and $498,000 thereafter.
“And Sand Creek,” Johnson said, “is proposing construction
of 550 new homes. So it’s a huge boon for us.”
Johnson described the golf course as an attraction that “has
really improved or increased Newton’s profile in the Metro area.
In July and August, non-residents accounted for 29.9 percent of our
play on weekdays and 17.5 percent on weekends.”
From an engineering standpoint, Loomis said, “We put a quality
project together at Sand Creek Station. It will function properly
for years to come.”
Sand Creek was connected to the city effluent treatment plant a half-mile
away, which amounts to free water to irrigate the golf course. Loomis
said 2.5 million gallons per day are processed and the golf course
itself uses 1 million gallons a day. Its irrigation pond holds a total
of 3 million gallons.
More than 8,900 linear feet of 36-inch stormwater sewer was installed
under the golf course to drain the course and surrounding development.
Loomis added that Brauer’s design called for a 150-foot bridge
spanning to Sand Creek flood plain and an underpass under the Burlington
Northern Santa Fe railroad tracks that bisect the course and development.
Brauer is not new to awards, although they are normally for accomplishments
in golf. He completed the rare accomplishment of winning back-to-back
Best New Upscale Public Course of the Year awards from Golf Digest.
The Quarry at Giants Ridge in Biwabik, Minn., and The Wilderness at
Fortune Bay in Tower, Minn, were rated the best in 2004 and 2005,
respectively.
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BRAUER'S WOODLAND HILLS A KEY
PART OF
NEW NEBRASKA GOLF TRAIL
The owners at five of the state's top-rated
public golf facilities have joined to coin The Nebraska Golf Trail,
which includes the Jeffrey Brauer-designed Woodland Hills Golf Course
in Eagle.
Modeled after the Robert Trent Jones
Golf Trail in Alabama, The Nebraska Golf Trail aims to give golfers
Stay-and-Play packages that feature play at Woodland Hills, ArborLinks
Golf Course, The Players Club at Deer Creek, Quarry Oaks, and Iron
Horse. Golfers can stay at Lied Lodge, operated by the National Arbor
Day Foundation in Nebraska City, or at Harrah's Council Bluffs (Iowa)
casino.
Nebraska's only "4 1/2 Star"
rated course by Golf Digest, Woodland Hills gives golfers a championship
lay-out amidst a setting that is remindful of the Carolinas. Brauer's
traditional design, built in the early 1990s, fits the lay of the
land, guiding players through native pines, wetlands, and rolling
bentgrass fairways.
Located in Nebraska City, the ArborLinks
Golf Course and the Lied Lodge will act as a centralized "hub"
for players on the Nebraska Golf Trail, whose courses lie no more
than one hour from each other.
"Our goal was to provide players
both in Nebraska and on a regional basis the opportunity to enjoy
the best that our state has to offer when it comes to golf,"
said General Manager Brandon Burns of ArborLinks Golf Course. "We
have five great courses, all located within an hour from each other
that will offer golfers award-winning courses at a reasonable price."
Besides Woodland Hills' accolades, the
other courses have also garnered praise. Golf Digest voted Quarry
Oaks as the "Best New Affordable Golf Course in the United States"
in 1997. Iron Horse and the Arnold Palmer-designed ArborLinks enjoyed
similar success in 2002 and 2003, as they were nationally recognized
in the same category.
The Nebraska Golf Trail has placed the
package information on the ArborLinks web site. For more information
on the trail and pricing, or to make reservations, please contact
their toll-free number at (866) 272-7453 or log on to http://www.arborlinks.com.
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Dallas Cowboys - Golf Course Management, Dallas, Texas
Super
Focus
Dallas
Cowboys Golf Course Management
By Mark Leslie
DALLAS, Texas
- He wears a Dallas Cowboys star tattooed on his arm. He named his
youngest son Troy (after Aikman) Austin (after the Texas city). So
when the offer came for Scott Szydloski to become head superintendent
at the Cowboys Golf Club under construction here, he did not hesitate.
"I couldn't pass up the opportunity," said the 39-year-old
Szydloski, who left a position as a superintendent for American Golf
Corp. (AGC) in Hendersonville, Nev.
Szydloski recalled that Dennis Wesseldine, who had hired him to work
for AGC, telephoned and said, "I have the dream job for you.
Are you interested?"
"I thought he was pulling a joke, that it was too good to be
true," said Szydloski, who was born in Lubbock and grew up in
San Antonio. "They flew me to Dallas and I saw the property and
accepted the job on the spot. This is a spectacular piece of property.
spectacular. I thought it would be flat and nothing to look at, but
it is gorgeous. It is in a wetlands area near Grapevine dam. It is
just phenomenal."
It is also
a one-of-a-kind golf course - the first built by a National Football
League franchise, with All-Pros like Aikman and Emmet Smith expecting
to tee it up, with the clubhouse serving as the site for Dallas Cowboys
press conferences, with the pro shop merchandising Cowboys as well
as golf paraphernalia; and with a planned star-studded pro-am tournament
opening the facility next summer. A new Opryland Hotel and Conference
Center is being built next door, and when it opens, people flying
into nearby DFW Airport will look down on a giant concrete Cowboys
star surrounding the practice putting green.
Will Szydloski be able to take time out from the golf course to share
time with any heroes from America's Team, such as at press conferences?
It is also
a one-of-a-kind golf course - the first built by a National Football
League franchise, with All-Pros like Aikman and Emmet Smith expecting
to tee it up, with the clubhouse serving as the site for Dallas Cowboys
press conferences, with the pro shop merchandising Cowboys as well
as golf paraphernalia; and with a planned star-studded pro-am tournament
opening the facility next summer. A new Opryland Hotel and Conference
Center is being built next door, and when it opens, people flying
into nearby DFW Airport will look down on a giant concrete Cowboys
star surrounding the practice putting green.
Will Szydloski be able to take time out from the golf course to share
time with any heroes from America's Team, such as at press conferences?
"I'll be like the guy in the rainbow Afro at the football games,
holding up the John 3:16 sign," he laughed.
Szydloski was brought on board in February while crews were still
knocking trees down on the Jeffrey Brauer/Golf Scapes design.
At Dallas Cowboys press conferences
"I'll be like the guy in the rainbow Afro at the football
games, holding up the John 3:16 sign." - Scott Szydloski
"It is very important, I feel, to be here during construction,"
he said. adding that course management company Evergreen Alliance
Golf Limited (EAGL), the majority partner in the venture, agreed.
"As high-profile as it will be, they thought it important,"
he added. "They wanted to show [Cowboys owner] Jerry Jones, in
good faith, that they would bring a management team on early. It has
already paid dividends.
"I've worked with all the different individuals - the architect,
builder, subcontractors from irrigation to electrical to grassing
- all the way through the process. To the every end, I've been able
to observe all the stages... all the ingredients that go into the
cake, so to speak. I know where main lines and problem areas are."
One of the ingredients of the cake is the four different soil types
that, Szydloski said, range from moon gray to Oklahoma red all the
way to Black Angus black.
"Twelve inches under, it looks like it came from the surface
of the moon," he said. "But, being here, I'll know how to
manage the water properly. I have it mapped out and am already tweaking
my irrigation schedule. Not knowing these quirks beforehand, you would
scratch your head wondering why one area would use so much water and
another area none."
The subsoil was so bad, Szydloski said, that when the trees were cleared,
the top soil was scraped into piles and later spread over nearly the
entire course, creating a 12-inch cap.
Since the property is completely tree-lined, Szydloski, Terry J. Little
Irrigation Consultant of Dallas and course builder Golf Works of Austin
had to alter irrigation in some places due to air flow, sun exposure
and the tree line.
Working with Brauer assistant Eric Nelson during the design-construction
process, Szydloski said, was "very enjoyable. They were on site
a lot, with no big egos. They work well with the client. If you have
idea, like trees I wanted left standing, or changing a bunker so it
won't be nasty to maintain, they listen.
"But Jeff's signature is his spectacular bunker complexes, so
we could not tweak them too much."
A great expectation of Szydloski is working with Audubon International,
"jumping on the bandwagon and running the course through the
process.
"There are all sorts of wildlife - deer, wild turkey, armadillos...,"
he said. "We had to work around a heron rookery, which is spectacular,
with herons nesting in 80- to 100-foot cottonwood trees."
Situated in an environmentally sensitive area, the property is owned
by the city of Grapevine and overseen by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
so "a whole lot of people are looking around at all times and
we are very sensitive to our environment, of what we do and don't
apply."
Cowboys Golf Club has gone as far as planting 40,000 pin oaks, pecan
trees and other indigenous trees on a 100-acre, city-owned site to
replace the 120,000 trees that were knocked down for the project.
"We will plant them next spring, maintain them for two years,
and guarantee a survival rate," Szydloski said.
Besides growing trees, the challenges will be plentiful for the Texan.
Dallas' heat and humidity make it a tough area to grow grass. "It
may not get warm enough for Bermuda to flourish," Szydloski said,
"but when it gets hot the bentgrass wants to crawl in a hole
and die. We will overseed every winter with perennial ryegrass and
Poa trivialis."
But while battling the daily weather to grow grass, Szydloski and
EAGL Senior Agronomist Guy Auxer are eyeing, with trepidation, a point
three years from now when they will be forced to use effluent to irrigate
the course.
When constructing the greens, they took extra measures to select the
right percentage of fine, medium and coarse angular sand. Auxer decided
on California (straight-sand) greens, not wanting to take a chance
that the soil profile will hold salts and other unwanted ingredients
from the effluent.
"Finally we found a source in Tyler that I think will be a dynamite
selection," Szydloski said. "My perc [water percolation]
rates are through the roof. They are over 30 inches."
He said that three years after Cowboys Golf Club begins using reclaimed
water the ratio of air space to solid space in the greens cavity "will
probably flip-flop on us." For instance, if the greens have 60
percent air and 40 percent solids when they open, as the greens mature
those number could turn over to 60 percent solids and 40 percent air.
Because of the change to effluent, Szydloski and the EAGL braintrust
chose Tifeagle hybrid Bermudagrass for the greens and 419 Bermudagrass
everywhere else.
Szydloski had Tifeagle at Wildhorse Golf Club in Hendersonville, Nev.,
which used effluent, and the turfgrass performed well.
"We have sprigged, sodded and everything is done," he said
in late-September. "We are starting to grow it in before the
greens shut down because temperatures are starting to drop. We want
it to look like the golf course has been here and is mature when we
open next summer."
Szydloski will not overseed, "just let the course go to sleep,"
he said. "When it is in pristine shape we will open it up. We
are maintaining it as if it is going to open tomorrow. We are cutting
it and detailing it because of the traffic. We're five minutes from
the corporate offices, so when they are meeting on new construction
projects or discussing an acquisition, they bring clients over to
see."
He said if he could only control nutsedge, he would be completely
happy. Nutsedge is very aggressive and Cowboys Golf Club sites in
a wetland area with a lot of ground moisture, so it is the perfect
spot for the weed to flourish.
Looking forward to the course opening, Szydloski said: "I only
wish we could open in time for the national convention [of the Golf
Course Superintendents Association of America] in February. People
will come out. It just won't be open to play."
Other than that, America's happiest superintendent is glad for the
move back to his home state.
"I didn't want to raise my kids in Las Vegas. Plus, my wife Charyl
is from the Midwest, and we like the family values and morals of Dallas
a little bit better."
Those children include daughter Carli, who turns 11 in October; twin
boys Brian and Collier, who will be 9 in November; and Mr. Aikman's
namesake Troy, who is 4.
Regrets number zero for Szydloski. When he graduated from high school,
he attended San Diego State, majoring in business management and was
"miserable."
The turning point in his life came when his high school counselor
asked what he enjoyed. His answer: working with plants and playing
golf.
His studies toward nurseries came to an abrupt end in the early 1980s
when a recession in California put that industry out of business and
he went to work on a golf course to pay for a membership.
Graduating from California Polytechnic Pomona's turfgrass program
in 1984, Szydloski took an assistant superintendent position with
Sunrise Co. in Palm Desert, Calf., at Lakes Country Club and then
Monterey Country Club.
During a tour of the area while in college, he had fallen in love
with it.
"The intensity level is so high there and everything is so action-packed.
It's Disneyland," he said. "There is no other place in the
U.S. that maintains top courses at that level."
He remained there for six years, then took a post with Cobblestone
Golf Group (now Club Corporation of America) in Rancho Santa Fe, rebuilding
Morgan Run with course architect Jay Morrish.
He left for Danville in the Bay area of California to be director
of maintenance at 36-hole BlackHawk Country Club, running a staff
of two superintendents and a 47-person crew.
The high cost of living in the Bay area drove Szydloski, with his
growing family, to return to the Palm Desert region, where he was
offered a job with AGC to the maintain Pete Dye and Gary Player-designed
courses at Westin Hotel in Rancho Mirage. When AGC's contract was
not renewed, they sent him to Wildhorse Golf Club in 1998. His growing
responsibilities at AGC came just six months before the fateful phone
call from Wesseldine and his move to the Cowboys last February.
Szydloski has run the gamut of turfgrass species - from Palm Springs
and its 110-degree weather, where he mostly dealt with warm-season
grasses, to the Bay area and its 65 degrees, where he grew cool-seasons.
"But I worship the sun too much. I'm not into fog and drizzle
and gloom," he laughed.
And his golf game, the one that partially led him to his career as
a golf course superintendent?
"Now, with four kids and three in baseball, I play once every
three months but I can still score in the 70s." That statement
came with a smile that was at once wry and winsome. <<
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