Wichita Falls, Texas - 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 in 2004, city officials engaged the architect to work the same magic on their own Weeks Park Golf Course.
For Brauer, who 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 in 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 they were impressed by the level of thought and detail that he had put into the comprehensive plan. They say Brauer has 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 adds. “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.”
Brauer says that competition 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,” Brauer says.
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 says. 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 says 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.
