The January 2010 issue of Golf Digest includes the annual review of the 10 Best Public Golf Courses in the United States. This year Port Aransas’ own, Newport Dunes Golf Club was ranked 8th in the country! Newport Dunes is a phenomenal course and it is one of my personal favorites. I have included the article below.

By Ron Whitten
Photo By Stephen SzurlejJanuary 2010

To hear Pete Dye tell it, French Lick was a job he tried to turn down but couldn’t.

Seated in the clubhouse overlooking his dramatic new course, Dye rattles off a one-minute history of the place. A hundred years ago, the French Lick Resort was the Las Vegas of Indiana, but by the start of this century, it was more like Flint, Mich.: run-down, boarded up, with little industry and lots of unemployment.

That’s when William Cook, who made a fortune manufacturing stents for heart patients, bought the resort and spent an estimated $500 million refurbishing the French Lick Springs and West Baden Springs hotels, the latter with its domed lobby once billed the eighth wonder of the world. Cook spruced up the resort’s fabled Donald Ross course (where Dye won the 1957 Midwest Amateur) but gobbled up half the resort’s original Tom Bendelow 18 for a new casino. So Cook brought in Dye from his summer home in Indianapolis and instructed him to create a new course that would help put more heads into beds.

Cook took Dye up to Mount Airie, a hilltop mansion built by the resort’s original owner, Tom Taggart, surrounded by ridgelines of pastureland. Dye took one look at the place and figured there was no way to fit in a golf course. He turned Cook down.

But then Dye came back for a second look, with a topographic map in hand. Turns out there were 312 acres, plenty of room, and it was the second-highest point in the state. Dye noticed fantastic views in every direction, vistas as far as 30 miles across the rolling Hoosier National Forest. Realizing he had something special, he took the job and made 140 visits during construction.

From the Taggart mansion, which now serves as the clubhouse of the $350-green-fee resort course, one can view nearly all of Dye’s finished product 50 feet below, routed like a four-pointed star, with squiggly fairways dotted by typical Pete Dye pot bunkers. The bunkers look like giant gopher holes, except for those atop mounds on the par-4 second. The resort calls them volcano bunkers, but they look more like the creepy egg-pods from the movie “Alien.”

Once on the course, it becomes apparent that the bent-grass fairways are much narrower than the massive 60-yard-wide things seen on most new courses. These are just 30 yards wide, squeezed to 25 yards at the 300-yard mark.

“You’ve got to give the average golfer wide corridors, but it’s too expensive to do wide fairways in bent grass — too much water, too many chemicals,” Dye says. “So we’ve got these fairways, and on each side of them we put in 30 yards of low-mow bluegrass rough, cut at two inches at the most. So every hole is really 90 yards wide, understand? That way, the average golfer can hit it all over the place but will still be able to get a club on the ball and hit it again.”

So why not have 90 yards of bluegrass, from which a 30-yard-wide fairway could be mowed at a shorter cut? “Because I want a PGA Championship here,” Dye says. “The pros won’t play bluegrass fairways. They want bent grass.”

There you have it. Pete Dye, turning 84 at the end of 2009, 50 years into the course-design business, is still chasing major championships. He’s not satisfied that three of the next six PGAs will be played on his designs, at Whistling Straits (twice) and the Ocean Course at Kiawah, or that his Crooked Stick was the site of the 2009 U.S. Senior Open or that his Blackwolf Run will host the 2012 Women’s Open. He wants more.

The Dye course at French Lick measures a whopping 8,102 yards, par 72, from the gold tees. It’s not meant to ever play that long; the extra yardage on most holes exists only to provide flexibility when the wind kicks up, or when it doesn’t.

It’s a surprisingly easy course to walk, especially from the regular tees of 6,115 yards, each next to the preceding green. From there, Dye and I played the course, with caddies, in less than three hours. And thanks to Pete’s wife, Alice (their 60th anniversary will be on Groundhog Day), the forward tees are just 5,151 yards.

There was a calendar produced by the resort featuring photos of its new Dye course. The last photo, taken during construction, shows Pete and the entire construction crew, including project supervisor Chris Lutzke (a fine architect), superintendent Russ Apple and nearly 50 others.

“That’s why I’m still digging at my age,” Dye says of the photo. “To keep a bunch of good kids in the business.”

Our full-service marina offers comprehensive concierge-style services

including a complete care facility to keep your craft ship-shape in every way. The meticulous housekeeping staff allows you to boat virtually maintenance free. Slips can accommodate boats up to 80 feet, and our state of the art security system provides maximum protection for our 250 covered boat slips.

Visit The Reserve at Lake Travis Marina

Brand new, and Lake Travis’ largest and deepest water marina, our state-of-the-art facility is currently taking reservations for moving in your watercraft, so contact us today for slip rental prices and availability.

 

Sterling Homes Continues a 20 Year Trend

These days, hearing a company say that they put the customer first sounds more like a quaint motto stolen from a by-gone era than something that they really do. Sure, it sounds nice and it looks great on a company website, but is it really something companies actually do anymore?
If you’re asking that question about Sterling Custom Homes, the answer is a resounding and refreshing yes they do. For more than 20 years, Sterling Custom Homes, has made their customer the top priority in all that they do. They’ve done it that way not because it was a catchy slogan, but because it was just simply the right thing to do.  Their focus on customer care has been the driving force behind the success of their business, and it’s even led to some unexpected innovations.
Instead of just trying to build a better home, Sterling Custom Homes has been focused on developing a better building process, a process which is completely designed around their customers. From their state-of-the-art automated software systems, to their prompt attention to even the smallest detail both during and after construction, this is a company that truly believes in serving their customers.

Who is Sterling Homes?
Sterling Homes was founded more than 20 years ago right here in Austin, and their management team brings more than 100 years of construction experience to each new home they build. Duke McDowell, the President of Sterling Homes, personally walks every job site on a regular basis just to be sure things are still being done the right way. Duke has devoted his entire career to building homes, and his passion shows. His leadership and the company’s dedication to exceptional quality and service has earned them in excess of 100 industry awards, including an unprecedented 3 Texas Custom Builder of the Year awards.
Like Duke McDowell, Vick Pope has spent his entire career in homebuilding. As the Vice President of Sterling Homes, Vick is responsible for overseeing the entire construction process. “My real job,” Pope explains, “is to manage the customer experience, because building a home is as much about building trust and relationships as it is about sticks and bricks.” Gary Grambley is the Director of Sales and Marketing and he works with new clients and potential clients to help them get acquainted with all the unique processes that Sterling Homes provides. Gary says that he has a secret weapon in his corner: “I feel like I have a tool no other custom builder can provide. We know that a prospective customer could call any one of our past clients, and those past clients would recommend us. That means we have more than 150 advocates out there in the Austin area who trust our service enough to put their reputation on the line with a recommendation.”

Never Stop Improving
Sterling Homes believes that continuing education is critical to their ongoing success. That’s why four members of their team have achieved their designations as Certified Graduate Builders. Three of them have even achieved the prestigious title of Graduate Master Builder from the National Association of Homebuilders. Those titles are more than just vague, meaningless certifications that come after their names. Those designations are a sign that the people at Sterling Homes are constantly learning new and innovative techniques and that they are continuously improving what they offer to their clients. It means that they meet and exceed required standards of business practice and that they have a proven track record of successfully managing complex building projects.

Going Green
In addition to their tireless pursuit of improvement and education that resulted in multiple Master Builder certifications, three members of the Sterling Homes’ family have also achieved the exclusive designation of Certified Green Professional from the National Association of Homebuilders. This means that they have spent significant time learning about the best and most efficient green building methods and they understand how to integrate those principles into the homes that they build. Their customers will appreciate not only the improved construction methods, but also the fact that they have learned how to integrate many of these principles without driving up the cost of construction.

Communication Is Key
Sterling Homes’ industry leading website features a private entrance for clients to stay abreast of the progress of their home, and to allow them to interact with their customers more efficiently. One of the most distinctive tools that Sterling Homes provides to their customers through their website is The Sterling CookBookTM. “We believe that The Sterling CookBookTM is one of the unique organizational tools that we have developed to help our customers manage the building process,” says McDowell. “We call it our CookBookTM because it is a recipe for building your home. It is an incredibly detailed document that takes you step-by-step through the process of building your home.”
Sterling Homes believes that each recipe is unique, and it includes every single step that their clients need to complete, and when they need to complete them. This book gives their clients an incredible piece of mind, so that they are never left wondering what needs to be done. In addition to serving as a great resource during the building process, it is also an invaluable reference to the client after moving into their dream home. It lists everything they need to be doing at different points to keep their home in top shape as the years go by.

The Bottom Line
R. Michael Brown, Broker/Co-Owner of Avalar has this to say about Sterling Custom Homes: “We spend a great deal of time working with homebuilders and helping buyers of new homes. We have dealt with many great builders over the years, and we have also seen our share of difficult builders. We believe that there isn’t any builder who does it better than Duke McDowell and Sterling Custom Homes. We have not seen any better customer service and communication, and the quality of their homes is as good as any you will find.” Sterling Custom Homes has spent the past two decades building an impeccable track record for exceptional quality and service, and even with such success behind them, it still seem that the best is yet to come.
To learn more about Sterling Custom Homes, visit them online at www.sterlingcustomhomes.com