The city of Newton, Kan. unveiled Sand Creek Station — its first municipal golf course, and the community’s first 18-hole facility — at special VIP Media Day ceremonies June 30. Leading officials in the community, along with golf course architect Jeffrey D. Brauer, will attend the event, which culminates several years of planning.
A press conference was held with with Brauer, whose golf course designs have won multiple national honors. Mayor Curtis Nightingale, City Manager Jim Heinicke and Newton Chamber of Commerce members then joined in a ribbon cutting at noon. A shotgun round of golf started at 12:30, followed by a 5 p.m. banquet.
The course opens to the general public on July 1.
The city and Wichita land developers J. Russell Co. and Ritchie Associates negotiated a unique public-private partnership, with the developers donating 175 acres, which the city turned into a golf course. The surrounding 565-home development, and others to follow, will bring revenue to the community and provide an amenity to the developers. Meanwhile, Russell and Ritchie paid Newton $600,000 and will pay another $2,400 for every lot that is developed.
When the agreement was announced at a city commission meeting in 2003, it was greeted with a standing ovation. Now, residents will see the fruition of the city’s hard work. In an analysis of the Newton-area market, the National Golf Foundation found that a new public golf course would need to be “equal to a B-plus or A-minus private course.”
Brauer, of Arlington, Texas, should be able to deliver the goods. In both 2004 and 2005, courses he designed won the Best New Upscale Public Golf Course of the Year in Golf Digest rankings — the first being The Quarry at Giants Ridge in Biwabik, Minn., and then with The Wilderness at Fortune Bay in Tower, Minn. The Wilderness was also named among the Top 10 Best New Places To Play by GOLF Magazine, and was honored by both Travel & Leisure Golf and American Airlines' Celebrated Living magazine as one of the 10 Best New Public/Resort Courses in America.
Drawing on Newton’s history as an old railroad town, with an active junction, Brauer designed Sand Creek Station with Troon and Prestwick [golf clubs] in Scotland in mind. They were both located adjacent the railroad lines, and at Sand Creek Station Brauer emulated the use of the railway as a hazard on some holes. Throughout the course, he has used the golf course as a buffer between the railway and home sites.
Brauer says he feels Sand Creek Station will win over Wichita- and Newton-area golfers with its links-style and thought-provoking holes fashioned after other Scottish links. However, vibrant Sand Vreek runs through the property and not all holes are links. Holes along Sand Creek are wooded and provide variety. One of the property’s greatest challenges was designing those holes for flood protection that much of the land floodway land that began as billiard-table flat. Since the vibrant Sand Creek runs through the property, Brauer raised the greens to 100-year-flood levels, tees to 25-year-flood levels and fairways to 5-or 10-year-flood height.
General manager and head golf professional Chris Tuohey of Kemper Sports describes the track as “a great mix of Scottish-style links and target holes.” He says the multiple tees range from 5,200 yards to 7,400 yards, a perfect range for beginners, seniors, women and low-handicappers.
Tuohey, who worked for three years at Bayou Oaks Golf Course and seven years before that at Colonial Country Club, both in New Orleans, said the course will employ 30 in peak season, from April through September. Tuohey says Sand Creek Station Golf Course’s head superintendent is James H. Houchen III, formerly at acclaimed Shoal Creek Golf Course in Kansas City, Mo.
Brauer is no stranger to awards beyond his national 2004 and 2005 honors. The former president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects has won many others since opening his own firm, GolfScapes, in 1984. Lost in the shadows of accolades for The Quarry and The Wilderness is the fact that Brauer's complete reconstruction of Indian Creek's Creeks Course in Carrollton, Texas, earned it the 7th spot among Golf Digest's Top Affordable Public Courses.
In the past, several others were rated among the Best New Courses of the Year, including: The Legacy Golf Club in Norwalk, Iowa, in 2003; Canterberry Golf Course in Parker, Colo., in 1997; and Avocet Course at Wild Wing Plantation in Myrtle Beach, S.C., in 1994. Colbert Hills Golf Club at Kansas State is the No. 1-ranked course in Kansas and is the first collaboration between the PGA of America and Golf Course Superintendents Association of America.
Brauer and his company, GolfScapes, can be reached at 2225 E. Randol Mill Rd., Suite 210. Arlington, TX 76011; phone 817-640-7275; e-mail: jeff@jeffreydbrauer.com; Web site: www.jeffreydbrauer.com.
