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August 31, 2007
Top Rankings Are Par for This Course
Texas Tech Rawls Course ranked third by superintendents' magazine.
Written by Cory Chandler
An aerial view of the Texas Tech Rawls Course,
(Click for a larger view)
What was then – back in 2003 – course architect Tom Doak's most complicated feat, pegging 18 holes of sublimely rolling greens on a bald patch of flat West Texas farmland, produced a jewel of minimalist simplicity, a deceptively Spartan ripple of par-devouring nuances capable of stymieing even the best of collegiate golfers.
Yet in sculpting Texas Tech University’s Rawls Course, Doak achieved more than a daunting course; he created a golf haven for all comers, the professionals and the greenest of green amateurs, those choosing to hoof between tee boxes or zip through on a cart.
“That’s the beautiful thing about our course: it’s accessible to everyone,” said managing director Jack North, pointing out that the course is easy to walk and challenging to the elite players while remaining inviting to those looking for a weekend romp through the back nine. “It’s just a great course.”
Just a Great Course
These features have already earned the course accolades from players’ magazines; now a prominent magazine for golf course superintendents has listed the Rawls Course as the third-best college course in the country.
The magazine, TurfNet, ranked the Rawls Course behind only greens at Yale University and Williams College. Texas Tech beat out contenders including Ohio State, Stanford, Notre Dame, Duke and the University of Michigan for the honor.
In the four years since the Rawls Course opened, Texas Tech has already accumulated numerous accolades from the likes of “Golf Week” and “Golf Magazine.” But those publications, written for players, weigh course merits from a player’s perspective.
To earn high marks from a magazine for superintendents – those who work fairways, tend fairways and truly know the secret ticks and personality of fairways – confirms North’s conviction that the Rawls course is remarkable from both sides of the tee.
Building the Nation’s Best
Of course that was the plan, the vision laid out by course benefactor Jerry S. Rawls when he met with Doak in 2001: Build the finest collegiate golf facility in the country. These were tall marching orders even for Doak, one of the best course architects in the world and hot off designing the acclaimed Pacific Dunes Course in Bandon, Ore.
The location was a former agricultural research field with only 18 inches of rise from end to end. Hemmed in by city, crammed between busy intersections, straddled by power lines and apartments, it was far from ideal, Doak noted.
“If no great natural site for golf existed in Lubbock, then we would build one,” Doak wrote on the Web site of his company, Renaissance Golf Design Inc.
Building the course would eventually require shifting 1.3 million cubic yards of earth, molding a landscape out of what amounted to blank canvas.
The result is a sweeping links-style course boasting wide fairways and bold contours, designed with a nod to Lubbock geography and the winds that belt across the course some days – many of the fairways are routed against the prevailing southern winds, incorporating them as the predominant hazard, and golfers are sheltered from the surrounding city by berms reminiscent of the craggy face of the South Plains’ Caprock.
Recent Honors
Golf, genteel game of pars and putts, of muffled claps, water hazards, Scottish brogue and rolling emerald vistas, seems far removed from the spurs and dust of West Texas stereotype.
Yet the course – home to both Texas Tech men's and women’s golf teams – has played host to the women’s Big 12 Championships, the women’s NCAA Central Regional and several United States Golf Association and American Junior Golf Association events.
Other awards include:
Golf Magazine:
Ranked 23rd in Best 50 Golf Courses in the US for $50 or less
Golf Week:
#3 University Golf Course in America
Golf Digest:
#2 New Affordable Public Golf Course in the US
Related
Alumnus Has a Passion for the Game (And the Grass)
Story produced by the Office of Communications and Marketing 806-742-2136.
Top photo by Artie Limmer
Web layout by Jon Fox