On the steamy late afternoon of Tuesday, June 14, 40 people gathered around the fifth green of Trinity Forest Golf Club for a sneak peek at the much anticipated golf course. TREC members and guests left TREC’s office in a bus at 4:15 p.m. to take the remarkably short drive south on I-45 and east on Loop 12 as a part of TREC’s Power Hour series. Hosts for TREC’s tour bus included Jonas Woods, Founder and President of Woods Capital, Director of Grounds Kasey Kauff, Director of Golf Richie Hare and First Tee Executive Director David Rambie.
The Idea
In November of 2011, Jonas Woods, the straw that’s stirred the drink at Trinity Forest, dined with Randall Stephenson, CEO of AT&T. Stephenson expressed a strong interest in the Dallas-based telecommunications giant serving as the title sponsor for The Byron Nelson, but only if it could eventually be held on a “world-class” golf course near downtown Dallas. Initial efforts were spent looking to duplicate the well documented work of Tom Cousins of Cousins Properties at Eastlake in Atlanta. Eastlake was a great golf course with a rich history, but a surrounding neighborhood that declined over time. Cousin’s commitment to Eastlake and its neighborhoods has dramatically improved the adjacent community and would be a terrific model to follow. Maybe Cedar Crest? Maybe Tenison? After several months of analysis, none of the existing options really worked, primarily because of what Woods described as “outside the ropes” issues of holding a big-time PGA tournament.
The Site
Backing up a few years to 2006, Woods took a call from a landowner of property around the Trinity Forest thinking maybe Hillwood could repeat its success of Vacquero in Westlake by developing a golf course in and around the Trinity. Woods noted that Vacquero worked because they could sell residential lots for million dollar homes and didn’t see that potential in South Dallas at the time, so he politely declined and didn’t even look past the aerial.
Six years later, Woods was on a mission to find 200 acres in Dallas proper to build a new golf course to meet Stephenson’s vision and called back the landowner. He toured the property, thought a golf course in the middle of the hardwoods would be spectacular and commissioned a golf course contractor to develop some estimates. Those numbers, along with the environmental realities of a flood plain and the Corps of Engineers, came back so staggering as to completely douse the idea. But in coming to that conclusion an adjacent site surfaced, one with the proverbial good news and bad news. Good news; it was owned by the City of Dallas. Bad news; although it was a rolling meadow to the naked eye, right below the surface it was a landfill. But Woods quickly learned that a landfill never stopped a great golf course- Exhibit A is Liberty National in New Jersey with its panorama of the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline where The Barclays PGA tour event has been played. So off he went.
The Deal
Armed with a shared vision and equipped with the energy of an evangelist, Woods assembled a team of the powerful and the powerful serving the powerless. After completion of the course and the clubhouse, the project cost totaled $50 million. Woods says this total will be provided entirely by the members of the club, now 120 in number. This project fit snugly into Mayor Rawlings’ Grow South initiative and the taxpayers provided $12 million in environmental remediation and public infrastructure for streets and utilities. The Salesmanship Club invested money. SMU joined the group and committed capital to provide a home course and training facility for its golf teams. The younger and less fortunate citizens of Dallas will have a new home for The First Tee, an incredible organization that teaches essential golf skills to help kids flourish on and off the course. As Rambie noted, “The First Tee of Dallas put their arms around 70,000 kids in Dallas last year.” They’ll have a brand new 7,000 square foot learning center at Trinity Forest to touch even more. In fact, TREC Foundation provided provided funding and pro bono professional services for this facility.
The Course
The development team brought in six golf architectural firms to hear their story and tour the property. The highly regarded firm of Coore and Crenshaw, led by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, was selected to design the course, a layout inspired by other links courses they authored. The list of links golf courses they designed from the ground up include Bandon Preserve and Bandon Trails, Streamsong, Sand Hills and Old Sandwich. They re-tooled world famous courses like Pinehurst No. 2 and Prairie Dunes. Coore and Crenshaw influences are also seen on local links as they helped improve Brookhollow, Shady Oaks and Lakewood Country Club.
Coore and Crenshaw faced special challenges in creating Trinity Forest Golf Club. The City’s remediation included insuring a cap of clay at least two feet in depth covered the entire landfill. After that was complete, no work could disturb the clay or anything beneath it. 750,000 cubic yards of dirt were brought over and the site’s natural terrain was enhanced by moving and sculpting the fill. Construction started on July 2014, the first blade of grass was planted in June 2015 and construction finished in November 2015.
The greens are Champion Bermuda. The fairways are L1-F Zoysia, soon to be re-named Trinity Zoysia, and are the only fairways in the world with this type of grass. Both strains are of recent vintage, developed by Texas A&M for the unique climate of Texas.
The Byron
According to Rambie, also a member of the Salesmanship Club, the PGA requires two growing seasons before a course would be considered for a place on the tour. Trinity Forest is in its first growing season and the fall of 2017 will mark the second anniversary. That corresponds nicely with the PGA’s contract with the Four Seasons that expires in 2018. Nothing is in writing, but the stars are lining up for an AT&T Byron Nelson Championship in May of 2018 at Trinity Forest.
Trinity Forest will be a special golf experience. Can’t wait to tee it up! Anybody know a member and can get me on???
Sam Gillespie has been playing golf for nearly fifty years and finally realized it’s a game to love, not to master. Sam will join Invesco as senior director on July 5.