Texas Golfon

Dances With Wolves

Wolfdancer Golf Club in Bastrop is pure...pure beauty, pure golf and pure Hill Country.

By Alex Blair

When people refer to Wolfdancer Golf Club as a hidden gem, they really mean hidden.

The three-year-old semiprivate layout is part of the secluded Hyatt Lost Pines Resort just east of Austin near Bastrop. If not for the massive wooden entryway off Highway 71, motorists would never know the resort was behind the wall of trees. But it’s only after you get to the first tee of Wolfdancer that you realize that the golf side of the resort is more than another hit-and-giggle family course.

This is serious golf.

“The golf course is a challenge,” said Eric Claxton, director of golf. “It’s not your typical resort course. We have a great product, and I really believe this can be a great golf destination.”

Architect Arthur Hills and his lead designer Chris Wilczynski made full use of the variety of looks the Texas Hill Country gave them to produce one of the most unique courses in Texas. Simply put, it feels like three different courses: part highland-links, part rolling parkland and part Texas river bottom. Hills and Wilczynski imparted an Old World look to the course and created so many interesting holes that Wolfdancer might be the most memorable course you will ever play.

It didn’t start that way.

“When we first went out there were a lot of old shacks on the property,” Wilczynski said. “Some old rundown places.”

But the land…wow. It was located right across the Colorado River from McKinney Roughs State Park. There was a dramatic drop in elevation from the hills to the river bottom that greatly intrigued Wilczynski and Hills.

“It had this big ‘Sound of Music’ ridge,” Wilczynski said. “It was the spring time and wildflowers were everywhere. There were a couple lookout points where you could see for miles. We just had to get golf holes up there.”

The original plan had been for the holes to wrap around the ridge and for Hyatt to put cabins on top of the hill. But the resort changed its plans for the sake of the course. In retrospect, it’s hard to image what the course would be like without the high holes, which consist of Nos. 1-4.

The first thing that strikes you is that the course looks like something straight out of a coffee table book on courses of Scotland or Ireland. The bunkers often have deep, sod faces and are bunched together in groups, a la the Principal’s Nose at St. Andrews. Wolfdancer’s hallmark is the small greens with sloped edges and collection areas. The greens show the heavy influence that the work of Donald Ross had on both Hills and Wilczynski.

“We’re very old school,” Wilczynski said. “We believe that a lot of the top 100 courses in the world are classic courses for a reason. They have a timeless quality to them and a great look.”

The first four holes are open to the elements because of their altitude. Native Texas grasses serve as the equivalent of heather to finish off the look. But it’s the vistas that remind people that, yes, they are in the Hill Country.

“The scenery in the Texas Hill Country is unbelievable,”Wilczynski said. “I tell people who don’t know that region of Texas that it’s like a miniature Colorado.”

The 603-yard, par-5 third hole is situated at the highest point on the property. From the tee, golfers can see for miles. But you barely notice as you try vainly to pick a spot to land your tee shot.

The hole is speckled with 19 bunkers, some of them placed seemingly at random. From the tee, the fairway barely is a sliver in front of a 56-yard long fairway bunker. It isn’t in play, save huge drives, but it doesn’t do anything to relieve your anxiety.

When you get down to the landing area, you notice there’s much more room there than it looked like from the tee, so what were you worried about?

Then you notice you have a very difficult second shot. The landing area is one lower plateau from the green and the back half of the fairway. It’s a blind layup fraught with danger.

Long hitters can choose to challenge the fairway bunkers on the left. If they do, they’ll have an easier route to the green in that they’ll at least be on the same level. They still face an intimidating carry over bunkers to a narrow green with a massive greenside bunker to the right and a pot bunker bracketing the left.

Of course, you knew what to expect from this hole when you noticed the pot bunker adjacent to the forward tee and the twin pots 30 yards in front of it. Those bunkers are only there to play with your mind even more. You will be hard pressed to find a more stimulating and scenic hole.

The third hole also is a good example of the undulation and

sloping that Hills and Wilczynski took advantage of or created. That’s true of both the fairways and the greens.

No. 6 is a short par 3 with a man-made rock waterfall on the left and a severely sloped green. If you leave your ball in the wrong spot on the green, you might end up playing your putt with your back to the hole. You’re not going to have that kind of putt at many other courses in the state.

A golfer playing Wolfdancer for the first time would be almost hopelessly lost without the forecaddies that the resort provides.

Knowing your yardages and strategy is a must.

“The pride of Hyatt is that little extra service and caddies help provide that,” said Wolfdancer head pro Kelly O’Donnell. “In time, we would like for them to become a kind of on-course concierge.”

After the third and the par-3 fourth, the character of the golf course changes. Massive oak trees often come into play. It’s a parkland style reminiscent of some of the venerable American courses on the East Coast. Despite the trees, you never feel hemmed in or claustrophobic. Indeed, fairways are pretty easy to hit at Wolfdancer. It’s after you hit the fairway when the fun begins.

That’s why the course is fun to play even if you’re not a scratch player. It may be challenging, but why play golf if you don’t like a challenge? The course is rarely unfair. It doesn’t demand you pull off heroic forced carries. It isn’t tricky. It just asks that you hit good shots and have a strategy in order to score well.

No. 7, a 337-yard par 4, is the first of four holes at Wolfdancer that can be played at less than 400 yards. But assuming birdie opportunity at any of the four plays right into the course’s hands. The green is guarded by a gorge in front and is sloped on the back running off into the trees.

A golfer will have to pull off an incredible shot to hit and land softly on the green. PGA Tour player Nick Watney is the only golfer to ever drive the green. The best chance for a wedge to the green is to aim at the two massive oaks on the right side of the fairway and away from the two bunkers on the left. But even they are dangerous.

“They were two of the best oaks on the property,” Wilczynski said. “We wanted to keep them so we kind of chipped away at it. You have to be careful about going right. If you’re under or behind the trees you’re looking at a punch shot to a high green.”

You can’t afford to be careless at any time during your round at Wolfdancer. Even the best players in the state have found it more than enough of a challenge. For a long time, PGA Tour player Omar Uresti held the course record with a 70, a fact that made O’Donnell proud. It wasn’t until recently that a member of the University of Texas golf team lowered it to 66.

After the par-3 12th, which has the most stunning view of the property, golfers begin a harrowing descent in their cart down the hillside. What greets them is a completely different golf course, as the remaining holes are laid out along the Colorado River bottom.

“That land was like jungle,” Wilczynski said. “It has these huge old pecans. We knew you could do something with those trees. The land was flat but sandy, so you could do a lot with it.”

With flatter terrain, the architects had to rely more on strategy for protection. Most of the closing holes are dogleg and insist on proper shot placement off the tee. Most of the greens had to be molded from scratch. No. 13 is a good example. Many at Wolfdancer believe that it’s the hardest hole on the course. Already measuring 470 yards from the tips, the hole plays into the prevailing wind.

“If you hit it up the right side you’re going to have a more difficult shot,” Wilczynski said. “From there it looks like the green is right behind a large bunker but it’s actually 40 yards short. The green is an extension of the hillside and is uphill from the landing area.”

The brawny 13th is soon followed by another driveable par 4 at the 15th. Wilczynski says variety of length is a key element of Wolfdancer and part of the reason every hole is memorable, combined with the incredibly variable terrain.

The resort has been promoted as a Hill Country playground. Guests can ride horses or explore the hiking trails at adjacent McKinney Roughs State Park. There are zip-lines for the adventurous who would like to zoom through the pines suspended high in the air. There is even a spa and a lazy river. Golf is part of this, but Claxton sees a day when the course will drive traffic by itself.

“Golf in an amenity,” Claxton said, “but I do see the golf course being able to draw more business here. We just had a group of 18 women from The Woodlands who stayed and played three days, and it was all because they wanted to play Wolfdancer.”

The course functions as its own semiprivate club. The public is welcome, and Wolfdancer offers family and individual membership packages that ask for an annual fee in exchange for unlimited golf and cart usage, locker room and discounts at the resort and spa.

The Texas golf economy has remained stable and Wolfdancer is no exception. According to O’Donnell, the course beat their forecast by 250 rounds in January and 300 rounds in March.

In an attempt to add further buzz for the course, Claxton has created a unique event: The Texas Club Championship Invitational. Wolfdancer has invited the club champions from the top 50 clubs in Texas and their families to stay at Hyatt Lost Pines for two days and play in a 36-hole event to crown the club champion of Texas. In years to come, the club could expand the event to include a women’s tournament and a senior tournament.

“With the golf course being a little more challenging, we want to give the better players in the state a chance to see it,” Claxton said. “We want them to go back home and tell the other members at their club, ‘Hey, you really ought to take your family to the Hyatt Lost Pines and play Wolfdancer.”

There could be a time when Hyatt Lost Pines and Wolfdancer is to Texas what Sea Island is to Georgia. It’s that good.

“It’s one of the most unique courses I’ve ever seen,” he said. TL

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