Elephant Butte, N.M. – Dick Phelps is returning to the mountains of New Mexico and renovating a course located midway between Albuquerque and El Paso.
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Fortunately, a new development company, Turtleback Mountain Partners, recently purchased the layout and 1,000 surrounding acres, where the firm plans to build an 1,100- to 1,400-home, resort community that managing partner Jack Whitt says will provide an environment where residents can live and recreate without having to leave the community.
“The new owners bought the property, saw my name as the course architect and asked if I would like a shot at sprucing it up,” says Phelps. “I said ‘absolutely.’”
Phelps will completely rebuild the original nine.
“The only thing remaining the same is basically the location of the holes,” he says. “We’ll have new greens, tees, bunkers, mounding, fairway shaping, irrigation and turf.
“On the newer nine we are coring and replacing the greens mix, rebuilding three greens, adding some bunkers and refining the irrigation. It is a substantial project. It will really be a totally new golf course when we are done.”
The greens will be planted with bentgrass and the tees and fairways with a bluegrass/perennial ryegrass mix. Water is plentiful in the area, where nearby Elephant Lake and Caballo reservoirs, fed by the Rio Grande River, provide irrigation water and numerous recreational opportunities at the base of Turtleback Mountain.
Construction of Turtleback Golf Resort is scheduled to start in July, with an opening slated for late 2006 or early 2007.
“Dick is an awesome talent,” Whitt says of Phelps. “We challenged him to take a rugged environment and build a golf course where the average person off the street could have fun playing the course but could also host a tournament that would challenge pro golfers. He achieved that by having at least five teeing grounds on each hole and some fascinating greens. This property has 250 feet of elevation change from the high to the low points, which lets you do some interesting things with tees and greens.
“It will be a desert-style course from all tees except the forward ones, which will be in the fairway. The other four tees will require hitting over desert. It will look much like courses in Arizona, with extreme definition between desert and green areas. We will use a lot of desert vegetation. There is plenty of water available, but we are trying to keep the irrigated area to 75 acres so we can be as water-frugal as possible.”
In addition to the 18-hole course, which will play approximately 7,200 yards from the tips, the golf facility will include continuous cart paths, a new driving range, practice chipping and putting areas, clubhouse, restaurant and pro shop.
The course will be the centerpiece of a single-family and garden-home community that Whitt estimates will be a 60-40 mix of full-time residents versus seasonal residents/investors. Other recreational amenities will include exercise, tennis and swimming facilities along with extensive hiking and biking trails as well as boating, fishing and waterskiing in nearby lakes.
“At an elevation of 4,250 feet, it will not have the harsh summer temperatures or the radical winter temperatures,” explained Whitt. “We hired Dick because we liked and felt comfortable with him. It has turned out to be an excellent decision.”
Phelps Golf Design is headquartered in Evergreen, Colo., with additional offices in Scottsdale, Ariz. The firm’s designs have received numerous honors, including multiple Golf Digest “Best New” award winners, many courses that appear on “places to play” lists and at least one “top 10” course in each of the following states: California, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Colorado, North Dakota, Nebraska and Texas.