Bandon Dunes’ owners release details on new 36-hole destination in Texas

In just 14 months, Dream Golf, the upscale resort golf enterprise run by Michael and Chris Keiser, have announced the development of two 36-hole public golf properties.

The first, last April, was Rodeo Dunes, set amid several thousand acres of choppy prairie dunes an hour northeast of Denver (preliminary construction on the first course, designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, is now underway, with a second course planned by Jim Craig).

This month Dream Golf has announced the arrival of Wild Spring Dunes, near the town of Nacogdoches in eastern Texas, roughly 160 miles from both Dallas and Houston.

Wild Spring Dunes spreads across 2,400 acres of pine and hardwood forests broken by meadows, creeks and ravines. The soils are a mixture of sand and clay. Sections of the site may remind golfers of the rolling pine terrain of Sand Valley in Wisconsin, another Keiser resort property, while others are uniquely East Texas playing through low canopies of oak and other densely-packed deciduous varietals. Even more distinctive are the elevation changes and rugged ridge and valley-like topography.

There are plans for overnight cabins and a comprehensive practice area. Portions of the site are blocked off for future residences. The first of two projected courses, designed by Tom Doak, is anticipated to break ground later in 2024. Coore and Crenshaw have studied the potential of the site for a potential second course and will be presumed to be the architects of the second course, should it happen, though no plans have been finalized.

An early site plan published on wildspringsdunes.com, though crude and with an indeterminate topographical scale, appears to show Doak’s course interacting with ravines on the east and western edges, with holes moving in and out toward the dropoffs with the greens at 13, 15 and 16 set above a canyon and others angled against creeks and branches of water.

“This land just has a different feel from anything I’ve worked on in the past,” Doak said in a statement. “That’s the attraction for me, and I think the course will be unique and interesting for golfers.”

The routing of the second course covers land of a slightly different character. Though Coore stresses it is preliminary and in need of refinement, the plan is to alternate between calmer and more aggressive high ground, with the greens of several cross-ravine par 3s set on promontories or benched into opposite uplands, perhaps similar to the second at Colorado Golf Club or the eighth and 17th holes at Ozarks National.

When it opens, Wild Spring Dunes will be yet another milestone in this renaissance period of public-access golf in groundbreaking settings. There’s currently a parallel market of courses being developed on similar “dream golf” pieces of land that are private and cater to a luxury clientele who have memberships across the U.S. Most golfers will see them only in pictures. That won’t be the case for anyone with the ability to travel to East Texas.