Texas Rangers Golf Club

[Lou_Duran]

Tim,


You are right, most people don't get used to it, they learn to acclimate, live with it, and rationalize.  Some like my wife who was the driver for leaving Columbus, Ohio to move here detest cold.  We talked about it yesterday when it was near freezing with a 10-15 mph north wind (supposed to get into the low to mid-20s for the next couple of nights).  She is fine with the summer's high 90s and low 100s for three months.  I tolerate the heat, play golf 3-4 times each week, out by 8, in by 11, but each year it wears more on me.


My main point on this is that people don't generally move to Texas for the good weather, or natural beauty for that matter.  But I haven't seen any data which shows a tendency to leave.

[Lou_Duran]

  Mike, Lou,  may venture north in mid-April... will message ya on plans

You might wish to consider aeration schedules.  We typically do a large, deep tine on Monday and Tuesday following the Masters, followed by heavy sanding and grooming every Monday.  And if it is a cold spring, we go into June with so-so greens (we then do it again right after the Member-Guest, and once more after the club championships, but the last two typically heal sufficiently in a couple of weeks).  You can figure that we are a week or two behind the aeration schedules in Houston.

[Mike Hendren]

If nothing else, I celebrate the demise of Chester Ditto - the absolute worst golf course I played during my two years in Dallas. 

Bogey

[Lou_Duran]

Michael H- Either you didn't get around much while in D/FW or you are being too hard.  Ditto was not a course to attract the better golfer, but it served the community in exactly the way a municipal course should- it cost, as I recall, under $1.5M to build ($4M in current dollars) turn-key, it was cheap, and it was playable.  I lived but a couple miles away but maybe played it 3-4 times in 20+ years.  I personally didn't like the course, though a number of my neighbors would go out there several times each year.  Incidentally, it was the site of my last sub-par round in competition (70, -2) during the city championship.  I won't be approaching that score at the new Texas Rangers GC though the architects built it to be a very playable, fun course. 

[Jeff_Brauer]

Lou,


Having been on the KN team when they designed the original, some backstory.  Yes, built for $1.6M at a time when at least $1.8M was norm, maybe $2.0.  However, a questionable contractor bid low, and the then parks director was enamored with the idea of being under budget rather than spending the savings.  I don't know, maybe his last project had gone over and he needed this one to balance.


Problems of a low budget included single row irrigation, which narrowed clearing, compounded by the fact that Killian and Nugent were great at drainage, but poor at golf.  Specifically, the cheapest way to drain fairways was to crown them in the middle.  Combined with narrow fw, it was nearly impossible to hit a fairway at least in the wooded sections.


Also, the original driving range was a favorite location of the PD.  In fact, I think if we hadn't agreed to put it there, we might not have gotten the job.  It was one of his key points.  We thought it fell off too fast to be inviting and I think John and Trey have it in a better location.


For some reason, I recall Killian and Nugent dropping their fee from their normal quote of $100K to $65K to assure they got the  job, as well.  We finished the plans, (in our minds symbolically) the night JR got shot on the TV show Dallas.  That was actually late, but it was the first time we shipped plans via Fed Ex for an "ungodly" extra fee, with stern admonishment that it would never happen again......it was regular practice within a month, LOL.


Ah, good times of a junior golf course architect.  I only saw the site once during construction as it wasn't one of my projects to oversee.

[Lou_Duran]

Thanks for the history lesson Jeff.  I often wondered why some fairways were contoured like saddles.  I remember playing the par 5 going west along Brown Blvd. 5 iron, 5 iron, wedge or 9.  Anything more off the tee would be in a pond or the woods.  I guess that after Ditto, the city went the other way.  Tierra Verde cost an arm and a leg- I would challenge a forensic accountant to come up with an accurate cost for the golf course, I've heard $12- $15Million in 2002-3.  With TRGC at $24M, muni golf is not what it used to be.  Arlington must be one prosperous city.  Maybe the red light cameras helped in the transition!

[Jeff_Brauer]

Lou,


Yeah, but I think golf was just a little over a third of both budgets, not unreasonable by then and now golf construction prices (Cowboys was done for about $4.8M a year earlier, and TV had the extra 3 practice holes, so the budget for Graham-Panks wasn't extravagant as I recall.)  Original bids for TR were under $9M, but I don't know if they had any change orders.  By comparison, Tempest ended up at $8.8 Mil, but with $1Mil in sod and about half that in numerous bridges, but otherwise similar.


So, if I was going to critique my home town, it would be on propensity to overspend on clubhouses, a critique I have for most golf courses.  I live between TR and Texas Star and we often dine at TS, and my wife conducts many meetings there, but the banquet room charge is under $100 and the meals are really reasonable.  City of Arlington supposedly has a much higher priced business plan for their clubhouse, so I guess we will see where it goes.


If red light camera tickets were the funding source, my guess is that I paid for holes 1-4 or so......and my "special" tax for being a resident in nearby Viridian may have mean I paid for part of the back nine, too.

[Lou_Duran]

Jeff,


Though I had left Arlington before the red light cameras were installed, my wife and I got three tickets during Sunday visits to see my mom.  All were turning right from Collins to Lamar and not one was a rolling stop- in fact, you could hardly tell that we didn't make a complete stop.  A friend of mine knew Dr. Cluck and I told her to pass on my hostilities.  She said that he just laughed, confessing that he had been cited himself a half-dozen times.  Thank God he got voted out primarily for his support of these tax generators and the citizens got them removed.


Re: Texas Star, Glenda is the best public sector manager I have had the pleasure of meeting.  She knows everything- turf, sand, chemicals, golf economics, and how to run a fantastic kitchen.  I've sent any number of people to the club for food and golf, and when I have to pick a visitor up at the airport, I'll often grab a meal there.


Re: the TRGC, my understanding is that the course cost around $8M, so that leaves a lot of money for the clubhouse and other infrastructure.  The Cowboys folks tell me that the course and the restaurant are both very busy, and as you know, it is not cheap.  Perhaps Arlington thinks it can replicate the experience  with the Rangers tie-in.  If I was advising the club, I'd tell them to go steal Glenda.