News:

Welcome to the Golf Club Atlas Discussion Group!

Each user is approved by the Golf Club Atlas editorial staff. For any new inquiries, please contact us.


Sam Morrow

Houston Chronicle Review of Jeff Brauers Wildnerness GC
« on: August 04, 2010, 10:25:59 PM »
The Chronicle had their Wednesday golf page today, by golf page I mean a half a page of crap. For a major newspaper to have such a bad local golf page is sickening. Not that I am complaining but anyway today they did a review of Jeff Brauer's course, The Wilderness, it's in Lake Jackson. Lake Jackson is best known for Ron Paul but the golf is pretty good down there too and not to far from Port Lavaca that a double with Wolf Point couldn't be possible.


http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/glf/7137934.html

Tiger_Bernhardt

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Houston Chronicle Review of Jeff Brauers Wildnerness GC
« Reply #1 on: August 04, 2010, 11:12:10 PM »
lol I thought is was about his course in Northen Minn and wondered why the Chronical would do an article on a Minn course.

Bill_McBride

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Houston Chronicle Review of Jeff Brauers Wildnerness GC
« Reply #2 on: August 04, 2010, 11:30:33 PM »
Son David and I drove down from Houston last year and had a really fun round in April. Some really interesting greens with lots of slope and contours. One short par 4 had a high left low right green with rolly coaster sideways slope. One par 5 had a Biarritz green. Fun stuff!

We may be the only ones who ever walked; the cart girl asked me if our cart broke down!

Jeff_Brauer

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Houston Chronicle Review of Jeff Brauers Wildnerness GC
« Reply #3 on: August 05, 2010, 12:21:33 AM »
Tiger,

The TX Wilderness had the name first, the very first course that was ever named something I suggested.  Actually, the second, as I called the then unnamed second course at Giants Ridge the "Quarry Course" at a press conference, and it kind of stuck, despite the owers objections.

The course was going to be put in half of Wilderness Park in Lake Jackson and they had a contest to name it and most of them were the Gus T. Jones course, etc.  I casually mentioned that the Wilderness was a cool sounding name and they called of the contest.  However, that was in year five of the lawsuits since I had been involved, and I was pretty sure it was never going to go. 

Subsequently, while up at Fortune Bay and standing at a urinal, I noticed their slogan "We put the Wild in Wilderness" adn told them it would be a good course name, since it was unlikely to be used in Texas.  They picked it.

Two days later, the environmental lawsuits were settled and construction started almost simultaneously on both courses, or as I call them, the Wildernii.  Had they actually turned out to be tough courses, maybe they would have been the Wildebeasts, eh?

I love the northern version.  The land on the southern version is pretty flat, as is all Houston land, so it needed a bit more work. I was probably overly influenced by gca. com with a Dell, Biaritz and other classic type greens.  I need to get down there and do the Wilderness/Wolf Point double.  Not now, in this stretch of 100 plus heat.  With Houston humidity, it would be a scorcher.

BTW, during construction, the course got near direct hits from 3 hurricanes.  We got 102 of Houston's annual 90 inches of rain in the first few months of construction!
Jeff Brauer, ASGCA Director of Outreach

Tony Ristola

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Houston Chronicle Review of Jeff Brauers Wildnerness GC
« Reply #4 on: August 05, 2010, 07:04:10 AM »
Want to build a golf course? They did a nice job chronicling the escapade.

http://www.thewildernessgc.com/wilderness.asp?id=131&page=1783

Jeff_Brauer

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Houston Chronicle Review of Jeff Brauers Wildnerness GC
« Reply #5 on: August 05, 2010, 08:34:49 AM »
Tony,

Geez thanks for starting my day with those memories!  The court rulings actually got picked up in the national news.  Audubon considered this a test case for some of their tactics to stop new development.  The legal system here is so grand.....

The Houston Audubon Society sued the AOCE, stating that they didn't know and didn't know how to enforce their own rules.  They demanded "alternate sites" be considered, a standard tactic for environmental groups that somewhere else is always better.  It turns out that the alternate site offered was really in the hands of a politician who wanted to profit, of course.

One of my best memories is a presentation where the Audubon President was railing against the golf course as being for rich people (even though its a moderate price public) whereas the nature park was free recreation (even though it was there and lightly used)  A real defender of the little guy.  Just then, someone announced a Mercedes was in the parking lot with the lights on, and she got up to go turn them off, after making herself sound too poor to do anything.

Ah, the memories.  Not quite as good a memory as the guy who got beer in his candy bag as a kid at Halloween, but ah the memories!
Jeff Brauer, ASGCA Director of Outreach

Tags:
Tags:

An Error Has Occurred!

Call to undefined function theme_linktree()
Back