HARLINGEN — After years of planning, the $3.1 million project aimed at transforming the Tony Butler Golf Course might be downscaled or pushed back.
Around May 1, officials were planning to launch the project while shutting down the 18-hole course until about Nov. 1.
For players, officials planned to keep the Executive Nine, the nine-hole short course, open.
But on Tuesday, the project’s lone construction bid came in over budget as a result of the supply chain crisis stemming from the coronavirus pandemic’s production slowdown.
“It’s significantly more than we had estimated and budgeted,” Assistant City Manager Craig Cook said, referring to Baytown-based contractor Greenscapes Six’s bid. “Because of the high price, we’re going to ask the city commission to reject all bids.”
Despite soaring construction prices across the golf industry, contractors are staying so busy the city’s request for proposals drew a single bid, he said.
“The golf industry is pretty busy because of COVID,” Cook said. “We had hoped that work was all done.”
Now, city officials are considering cutting into the project’s scope or delaying construction until some supply chain issues are resolved, City Manager Gabriel Gonzalez said.
Game-changer
In November, city commissioners hired award-winning golf course architect Jeffrey Blume for $217,000 to design construction plans as part of the project aimed at transforming the 18-hole course.
“It will be a premium golf course,” Jeff Hart, the golf course’s general manager, said Tuesday. “It will completely change golf in the Valley. You build it, they will come. Tony Butler will be the best or one of the best in the Valley. It’s going to completely turn around the golf course.”
As part of the project, officials plan a $1.9 million overhaul of the golf course’s old irrigation system, a $575,575 upgrade of its greens and the development of a $264,000 drainage system along low-lying areas.
“The sprinkler system is being completely rebuilt,” Hart said. “It’s the heart of a golf course.”
The project will overhaul the 18-hole golf course’s greens and fairways, installing three hybrid grasses to replace the old bermuda surface, he said.
“It’s going to have better playing surfaces with new top grasses,” he said. “The fairways will look like greens. The lakes will be greatly expanded to give it a more scenic view. When you look at Tony Butler, it’ll look like the ones you see on TV.”
The project
The golf course’s greens are in for a big makeover, expanding from 3,000 to 6,000 square-feet, with ultra-dwarf G-12 Champion grass replacing bermuda, Hart said.
“The greens will be all rebuilt,” he said. “They’ll have sand, which will make a much better putting surface so it will hold the ball — bermuda doesn’t hold it. They’re not going to have clay.”
Meanwhile, the new design calls for the reconstruction of the course’s tee boxes, where the Celebration hybrid will replace bermuda.
“The tee boxes will be rebuilt,” Hart said. “Now there are three or four at every hole. There’ll be five or six. That’s going to accommodate each skill level for players because it gives them more options at different links.”
Along the fairways and roughs, the new design calls for Latitude 36 hybrid to replace bermuda.
“The fairways will have a different type of grass — a much denser grass so the ball will sit on top instead of sinking to the bottom,” Hart said.
Across the course, the project will also revamp the bunkers.
“The bunkers will be completely rebuilt with liners — rubber liners,” he said. “They will hold the sand much better. That prevents a mixture of sand and soil. Most courses don’t have liners — and you’ll have drainage so you don’t wait days for rain to drain from sand traps.”
Delay to hurt
For Hart and the hundreds of golfers who play the iconic 93-year old course, the project’s delay is going to hurt.
In late 2019, the proposed project led Hart to leave his job as a fracking consultant in Calgary, Canada, to take the general manager’s post at the Tony Butler Golf Course, where he’s helped revamp the playing grounds, drawing golfers back to the course that’s been running in the red for nearly 10 years.
“That’s the reason I came to Harlingen,” said Hart, who holds bachelor degrees in biology, chemistry and business along with a masters in business administration.
“I wanted to be a part of it,” he said. “It’s very interesting when you love golf like I do.”
