Golf Courses: A look at the Most Exclusive in America
Wolf Point Ranch, Port Lavaca, Texas
What if I told you that there was a course in Texas 2 hours southwest of Houston that reminds people of St. Andrews (shown above)? What if I told you that Tom Doak said the green complexes were the best in the state of Texas? Now what if I told you it averages 2 rounds a day and has been aptly described as the best backyard in America?
Wolf Point Ranch is the brainchild of Al Stanger. A Texas rancher who in 2007 hired architect Mike Nuzzo to design a challenging course that rarely required the golfer to search for a lost ball.
Nuzzo was given free rein on a 1300 acre parcel of land and settled on a piece near the center of the property that varied in altitude by a meager 7 feet. However it was the existence of the thousand yard long Keller creek that caught Nuzzo’s attention as 8 of the holes would use the body of water in some shape or form.
What makes Wolf Point Ranch such an anomaly on this list is the cost. Built at a meager $3mm and maintained annually with a $500,000 budget the course is a guiding star for what golf courses should aspire to become.
When viewed on property or even from aerial views, the course feels at home in the Texas countryside, instead of propped up and inundated with unnecessary fertilizers to make it greener.
Don Mahaffey who oversaw the construction of the project and then stayed on as greenskeeper share his thoughts on golf course maintenance:
“Wolf Point definitely has some built-in maintenance advantages as we only have about 1,000 rounds a year. Less traffic means less compaction from carts. No shotguns, tournaments, or full tee sheets mean we can get by with fewer employees. Yet, what separates us from most courses is we do not do anything extra to make the course “pretty”.
“A cattle ranch in our part of the world has a rugged appearance and we want that same look for our course; we find a lot of beauty in the natural hues our course offers vs a course that is managed to look evenly green. Every maintenance task we do is based on answering one question, ‘Does it make the golf better?’ Obviously mowing does, as do regular cultural tasks like vertical mowing or aerification. But we never irrigate or fertilize unless we have a good reason.”
Too often golf courses are driven by aesthetics instead of how the course plays. If a modest staff in Texas can keep a golf course firm and fast, it makes you wonder why most course are soggy and slow. When’s the last time you’re drive bounded 50 yards down a fairway like you see on tv?
John Paul Newport visited the course, and had a great breakdown of what made it so unique.
If you’re interested in a hole by hole analysis head over to Golf Club Atlas.