Tempest Golf Club in Gladewater, Texas – two hours east of Dallas – is being grassed wth plans to open in July 2018. It is a design of ASGCA Past President Jeff Brauer (Jeffrey D. Brauer Golf Scapes).
Tempest Golf Club takes advantage of dramatic Piney Woods topography with its dramatic rise and fall of almost 200 feet, incredible core golf vistas across as many as five holes in the routing’s lower confines, and a pair of holes that play across a four-acre freshwater lake.
“We have always had the stated goal of being the best course in East Texas and the site allows us to accentuate what the land gives us,” said Brauer, whose previous designs include the Cowboys Golf Club in Grapevine, Texas, as well as The Wilderness at Fortune Bay and The Quarry and Legend Courses at Giants Ridge, and Superior National Golf Course, in Minnesota, all of which are highly awarded.
“(Owner Joe) Bruno has spared no expense giving us everything we’ve asked for, but the canvas itself just needed to be brought forward with a playable routing,” Brauer added. “Mr. Bruno’s architectural projects have won awards – he understands good design, and he is known for demanding the very best, which set the tone for the project.
“With a tweak here and a mound or two or a bunker there, we have been able to bring out the flavor and reveal the best things about the site. It will be a remarkable golf course and fun to play over and over again.”
Tempest Golf Club will be carded at 7,068 yards and play to a par of 36-36–72. The first six holes are routed over the footprint of the old course but the rest are completely new, built on land previously reserved for residential lots. The putting surfaces will be turfed with Champion G12 bermuda, perfect for the climate of East Texas.
Brauer said that golfers will find the sixth, the 11th, and the 12th holes to be Tempest Golf Club’s signature offerings, but only after great debate because every hole is solid and has little features that sets it apart.
The sixth hole (a par 5) uses the same corridor through the woods as one of the course’s existing holes but was transformed by moving more than 30,000 cubic yards of earth, removing the previous blind areas and creating a wonderful downhill vista.
Tempest Golf Club will be challenging for the best players, with tee locations that will make it playable for men and women of all levels- and junior golfer-friendly.
“I don’t believe in designing tough courses,” Brauer said. “Neither potential members, average golfers, or even millennials who will eventually support this course are enamored with extremely difficult tests of golf, although that philosophy was embraced and seemed true in the past. I am taking advantage of the site to design for moderately challenging, intensely interesting and beautiful golf.”