It didn’t get much notice because the news originated from 2,000 miles away, but there just was an announcement that could have quite an impact for the Shreveport golf community.
Bandon Dunes is one of the great golf locations in the world. It’s a development in southwest Oregon that has, if you believe Golf Digest’s ranking of “Courses you can play,” five of the Top 16 courses in the United States.
But the Kaiser family, the founders of Bandon Dunes, have recently begun to expand their golf empire under the name of Dream Golf. There is Sand Valley in Wisconsin, which has four courses.
There is Rodeo Dunes, which will have 36 holes when completed and is located about an hour away from Denver.
And the latest expansion for Dream Golf? About 70 miles away from Shreveport.
Wild Spring Dunes will be a 36-hole facility located in East Texas. It will be in an area bordered by the geographic triangle formed by Henderson to the northwest, Carthage to the northeast and Nacogdoches to the south.
Zoom in a little tighter at the development’s website and it shows the location to be very close to Mount Enterprise. That’s actually closer to Shreveport than Squire Creek, which is widely considered to be Louisiana’s top course and is located in Choudrant.
Golf.com published the announcement earlier this week.
“This land surprised me,” said Michael Keiser, who is the oldest son of the family’s patriarch. “I would never have imagined this kind of property in Texas. The pine forests. The steep ravines. The big hills surrounding it. You walk the site, and it’s always changing, and you can see golf holes on every part of it. Founders are going to be surprised and excited by Wild Spring Dunes the same way I was.”
Word has spread through the local golf community pretty quickly.
“This is a big deal,” said a local golf insider. “When you look at the circle of where they think their market will come from, it’s not just Dallas and Houston, but Little Rock and New Orleans.”
They might want to check their geography when claiming on the website that the location is “an easy day drive from a wide variety of neighboring cities and states” and then list Birmingham and Memphis.
It should also be a benefit to Shreveport Regional Airport, though East Texas Regional in Longview is a few miles closer.
“They are looking for groups that will fly in on Thursday, play Friday and Saturday and leave out on Sunday,” said the local golf analyst.
The routing has already been completed on one course (No. 1 is a dogleg right) and is being done by Tom Doak. The second course is being designed by Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore.
The facility will be modeled after the other Bandon Dunes/Dream Golf entities (sans Pacific Ocean): full service, publicly accessible golf resort with luxury on-side accommodations. They also expect to add a “short course” to the facility.
There will be Founders Memberships, which will give a buyer early access to the property, preferred real estate locations and exclusive golf privileges. If you’ve got $65,000 stuffed in your mattress, you’re in!
Just a guess here, but the daily golf fee would probably be in the $200-$250 range.
The bigger question is when this will all happen and that answer is not as clear. No announcement has been made on that, probably because Dream Golf is trying to get Rodeo Dunes up and running within the next year.
Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com