Tag: Houston golf

Tripp Davis starts work on renovation of BraeBurn CC in Houston

Work on the 90-year-old course includes new greens, turf and irrigation, making for better year-round conditions.

Tripp Davis and Associates has started an extensive renovation project at BraeBurn Country Club in Houston.

The private BraeBurn originally was designed by John Bredemus in 1931 and was extensively renovated in 1991 by Carlton Gipson, with significant elevation changes added.

“I have always wanted to be a part of a great project in Houston – a very golf-rich area,” Davis said in a media release announcing the project. “I am excited to finally be on the ground getting work going, and I can’t wait to get the membership back on the new course this fall.”

The work at BraeBurn will include rebuilding and reshaping all the greens, rebuilding and shifting tees, rebuilding and shifting bunkers in a more classic style and making better use of the elevation. New Northbridge Bermuda grass will be installed along with a new irrigation system and upgraded drainage. The practice facility also will be renovated.

Davis’ past restoration and renovations projects include Deepdale Club and Engineers Country Club in New York, Jimmie Austin OU Golf Club and Oak Tree National in Oklahoma, Sunnehanna Country Club in Pennsylvania, and Preston Trail Golf Club in Texas, among dozens of others. He also has built more than a dozen original courses, most of them in Texas and Oklahoma, including Old American Golf Club.

“This golf course redesign and construction project is a fantastic way for BraeBurn and its members to celebrate our 90th anniversary,” BraeBurn general manager Dan Olson said in the media release. “Tripp has created a timeless design built on a vision that will sustain interest, character and challenging yet friendly golf for all levels of play.”

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Stacy Lewis challenges Houston-area businesses: ‘Let’s have a tournament here every year’

Lewis wonders how the nation’s fifth-largest metro area doesn’t have a consistent spot on the LPGA schedule.

Stacy Lewis is ecstatic about the opportunity to compete for a U.S. Women’s Open title in her own backyard.

She graduated from The Woodlands High School, which sits roughly 30 minutes from Champions Golf Club, the site of this week’s tournament. And she’s been a member at Champions, nestled in the northwest suburbs of Houston, for about four years.

In fact, the 13-time LPGA Tour winner and two-time major champ openly admitted that when she had yet to qualify for this event it weighed heavily on her, knowing full well the chances to play in front of friends are family are few and far between.

And while she’s eager to show off her skills and her town this week, she’s also wondering how the nation’s fifth-largest metro area doesn’t have a consistent spot on the LPGA schedule. Events have rolled through on occasion — like the short-lived LPGA Tour Championship, which was played at the Houstonian Golf & Country Club in 2009 — but the last regularly scheduled LPGA Tour event in Space City ceased to exist after 1986.

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Lewis is at a loss to explain how this has come to pass.

“Houston is one of the biggest cities in the world, and there’s so many companies that are headquartered here, and I kind of throw it out to them to say, ‘Hey, let’s get us here more often. Let’s have a tournament here every year, because there’s plenty of good golf courses that are able to do that’,” she said. “In general, we don’t play a lot in Texas. The Dallas event has only been here recently. Like I said before, just having the kids to be able to come and have role models and have aspirations, to want to be in this tournament one day, that’s what we’re missing this week.

“From that aspect, I think it’s kind of sad for the kids in the area. But hopefully, this will maybe spark an interest and get us coming back.”

Lewis understands the pandemic has thrown a wrench into many plans, but she still sees Houston as a viable long-term candidate for an LPGA event.

“I think the way things are going right now, who knows, with what companies want to do,” she said. “But you’ve got all these energy companies in this area, and I just make a pitch to anybody that is supporting women in their organization and in their company to want to come out and to see this and to see the best in the world.”

So she’s hopeful someone steps up. As was the case with the Vivint Houston Open, in which Astros owner Jim Crane helped take the municipal Memorial Park Golf Course and turn into a PGA Tour home, she’s hoping another community leader will take a similar chance on the LPGA.

“Maybe they can do something to help within the tournament to help their business, so it’s a win-win for both,” Lewis said. “It usually just takes one person believing in us and having the idea.”

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