Weibring's Renovation of Courses at Watters Creek Draws Acclaim & Players

By: Steve Habel

The bustling Dallas suburb of Allen is home to a minor-league hockey team, one of the largest and most opulent high-school football fields in the nation, and - thanks to a renovation by architects D.A. Weibring and Steve Wolfard - a municipal golf complex that merits mention on the list of must-plays in North Texas.

The new facility, called The Courses at Watters Creek, offers a little bit of everything for all golfers. The property's original course, Chase Oaks, sported 27 holes and a difficult routing by the Devlin-von Hagge design team.

The Courses at Watters Creek now has three separate tracks: the 18-hole Traditions course, the nine-hole Players Course and the six-hole Futures Course. The renovation was completed in January 2013 and the tee sheet has been filled ever since.

More than $9 million was spent on massive project, which included adding lights to the facility's practice area, new golf carts, an expansion of the clubhouse bar and grill and more.

"Our vision was to design three unique golf experiences for all levels of players and to provide an outstanding environment to learn every phase of the game with first-class practice facilities," said Weibring.

"The refreshed property allows golfers the ability to bounce the ball on the green on all of the three courses while choosing the level of challenge to match your game with the variety of tees and angles of play," added the 53-year-old Weibring, a five-time winner on each the PGA and Champions tours. "We were striving for a traditional clean look highlighted with the 'white-sand' bunker locations guiding the player around the course."

A massive cleanup effort was part of the renovation through pruning and thinning the underbrush along the tree-lined fairways. Nine lakes were also dredged and reshaped.

Traditions Demands Your Best

The redesign of the championship course is the centerpiece of the refurbished facility. Traditions weaves through red oak, cedar elm and pecan trees. Most holes have as many as seven tees to accommodate all players.

Another feature that makes the course so attractive is the squared-off tee boxes grassed with 419 Bermuda. The greens are Mini Verde and can be as fast as the green superintendent desires.

For those who played the former Chase Oaks course, they'll find that the routing has been reversed; some holes were preserved and just switched sides, keeping the flavor of the former design while enhancing it.

Traditions plays 7,015 yards from the back tees. The work also included new irrigation systems, new cart paths, moving a lot of dirt to create new holes and reshape old ones, redoing all the bunkers and installing fluffy white sand, adding a waterfall and stretching the layout by 400 yards.

The result is a course that's more playable but still challenging and loaded with character. The new front nine at Traditions covers a lot of the terrain from the old back nine and has several fun and memorable holes.

The massive 516-yard par-4 fourth requires a good tee shot to carry a creek before ascending uphill with a shot that needs to avoid a bunker where the fairway turns left and continues its ascent to a green bunkered front and left.

The redesign mostly kept the original, 406-yard par-4 sixth, long considered the former course's toughest hole. You start with an elevated tee shot over a creek to a tree-lined landing zone tightened by a creek. The stream winds right and then left in front of an elevated green squeezed by bunkers front-left and rear.

No. 7 is a 512-yard par-5 pinched by three bunkers. A good second shot will position you for a tough approach that needs to carry a lake to a reach a green guarded by a pair of bunkers, the creek and mounds.

On the home half, the 163-yard par-3 11th asks for accuracy to miss the two bunkers around the green. The 585-yard par-5 closer involves a creek, four fairway bunkers and three more traps at the putting surface.

The greens at Traditions are large and made testy with gentle slopes and undulations. Many are above the fairway, and most are impinged by swales, bunkers and many run-off areas at their edges.

Short & Sweet

Weibring and Wolfard turned the other nine holes from the former design into the Players and Futures courses. The Players' nine is a par-30 and involves six par-3s and three par-4s, each with three sets of tees.

There are just three bunkers here as the designers mostly used grass features to frame the landing areas and greens. Players has no forced carries from the forward tees and only one from the middle and back blocks.

It's fast and fun to play for all ages and skill levels and a great place for golfers to work on their irons.

The Futures contains six par-3 holes that play between 40 and 120 yards. There are just two sets of tees, and only five bunkers, so it's all about the short game. Located next to the facility's expanded driving range, Futures is also lighted for evening play and is designed as a place for beginners and those looking for a quick round.

Any idea that's out of the box and helps grow the game is welcomed. Weibring and Wolfard have done an excellent job of addressing it here.

For more info, see www.watterscreekgolf.com.

Steve Habel is a freelance writer contributing Cybergolf news stories, features, equipment and book reviews and personality profiles from his base in Austin, Texas. He also works as an associate editor for Horns Illustrated magazine, a publication focusing on University of Texas sports, and is a contributing writer for Texas Golf Insider, Golf Oklahoma magazine, Tri-State Golfer and ATX Man magazine. Habel's blog (www.shotoverthegreen.blogspot.com) features news on golf and chronicles his many travels, including playing almost 1,000 golf courses since 2008. Habel is a member of the Golf Writers Association of America and the Texas Golf Writers Association.

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