Crenshaw, Sergio Garcia, Kyle Chandler, Asleep at the Wheel and more were on hand for the event.
AUSTIN, Texas — Ben Crenshaw has worked on golf courses all over the globe, first as a two-time Masters champ and PGA Tour star and now as part of the illustrious Coore & Crenshaw golf course design team.
But one of the courses he’s worked hardest on, Lions Municipal Golf Course in this Texas capital city, still hasn’t seen the outcome he’s been hoping for.
On Sunday, Crenshaw and a cavalcade of stars were on hand at Austin City Limits’ Moody Theater, raising money as the Muny Conservancy attempts to purchase or lease the land and maintain it as a golf course and greenspace.
The land on which Muny sits is part of the 500 acres known as the Brackenridge Tract, all owned by the University of Texas. The course is considered the first fully desegregated municipal course south of the Mason-Dixon line and the city has leased 140 acres for Muny since 1936, paying UT about $500,000 a year. If the parties don’t come to an understanding, the university could be free to lease the property to another entity, develop it or sell it.
On Sunday, the group raised another $1 million for the cause, marking the third straight year the gala could be considered a major success. Musical talent included Asleep at the Wheel lead singer and Save Muny Board Member Ray Benson, Larry Gatlin, Jimmie Vaughan, and Gary P. Nunn.
But those on hand admitted some frustration as talks continue to lag, and university officials have done little to show which direction they might be leaning with the property.
“We’re hoping for a long-term resolution. We’d love to have a long-term lease,” Crenshaw said while flanked by his wife, Julie. “The city and the university need to get together somehow. And we need to extend it. It’s a hundred years, 100 years of success in our town. It’s not only a golf course, but it’s a great space. We’re growing so fast. In this town, we’re losing space rapidly. So it’s a multi-pronged asset. To me, it’s the health and vibrancy of the community. Because I think it raises good people.”
Among others on hand was actor Kyle Chandler of “Friday Night Lights” fame. Chandler has long been an advocate of the cause and he lives in Austin, where he has been known to play Lions with Crenshaw’s longtime manager and friend Scotty Sayers and others.
Chandler is hoping the fundraising and visibility will be enough to dissuade university officials from making a poor decision, but he’s also surprised this has carried on as long as it has.
“I’m always kind of shocked that it’s even an issue that this piece of property, this land, this piece of history would be an error on a piece of paper erased from the community,” Chandler said. “That is what it is. It’s community. It’s family. It is the history. It means a lot to people.
“And hopefully, the people involved in making these decisions can be a lot smarter than expecting people 20 years from now saying, ‘Man these strip malls are absolutely gorgeous, I hope they last another 80 years.'”
The more quiet the university gets, the more worried Muny friends get and the more at risk the future of the course becomes.
AUSTIN, Texas — For years now, we’ve heard the pleas, and the voices are getting louder. But so is the silence on the other end.
Save Muny. Preserve one of the oldest public golf courses in Texas, its staunch supporters say.
But this is about so much more than golf and keeping a venerable course built in 1924, the same year Royal-Memorial Stadium went up on the University of Texas campus. It’s about social history, about civil rights as the first desegregated public course in the South, about opportunities for young and old, about high school golfers and senior golfers, about teaching the game, about a university’s umbilical cord with a city that supports it, about urban green space, about doing the right thing.
And, yes, it’s about money. Alas, the rallying cry might be falling on deaf ears.
Lions Municipal Golf Course is every bit as much in danger today as when the city’s lease for the historic property on the north bank of Lady Bird Lake expired in May 2019. Ever since, under an agreement between landlord UT and the city of Austin, Muny has operated on a five-month rolling lease.
Basically a handshake agreement. And the more quiet the university gets, the more worried Muny friends get and the more at risk the future of the course becomes. The site is already listed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation as one of the 11 most endangered historic sites in America.
“The university has an opportunity to embrace this and understand what a great jewel it is and heal a part of the tortured past it has with the issue of race,” said Gary Bledsoe, the president of the Texas NAACP. “It’s a really big deal. This is an opportunity for the university not to continue its history of hostility toward African Americans. I don’t know if I’m disillusioned, but I have a great deal of concern and alarm.”
Ben Crenshaw reads a Golfweek article about a course in Palm Beach, Florida, that’s working with the PGA of America. Crenshaw is working to save Austin Lions Municipal Golf Course, the course he started playing as a kid. (Tim Schmitt/Golfweek)
Looking for a cause? Follow the money
The problem is money, as it always is. Muny sits on the 345-acre Brackenridge tract, and the 141 acres for the golf course could command a price tag ‘in excess of $750 million,” one prominent local real estate developer told the American-Statesman last week.
And the figure could grow even higher with density allowances and possible height variances that other large tracts in Austin have received. The developer said he could see the land being used for “high-density housing” but also including commercial offices and upscale retail stores. Such a deal would probably require keeping up to 20% of the land devoted to green space.
The Muny Conservancy is hoping at a minimum that the 18-hole golf course amid the thick canopy of oak, elm and ash trees tucked away in that West Austin neighborhood could survive as that mandated green space, even if UT wants to develop the rest of the land.
“The land where the golf course currently sits was donated to the university to benefit our students,” Kevin Eltife, chairman of the UT System Board of Regents, told the Statesman in a statement Wednesday. “The Board of Regents and the university leadership take their responsibility to steward this gift and all gifts seriously. We will continue to work with the flagship to understand all options that accomplish the best long-term use of the asset, making sure our students for generations to come benefit along with the Austin community.”
Bob Ozer (Left), Ken Tiemann, Peter Barbour and General Marshall at Lions Municipal Golf Course in Austin, Texas.
Are you listening, Texas?
The best option is probably to keep Muny as it is. Simple as that.
So is the university actively seeking a buyer for this attractive property just minutes from downtown?
“We don’t know what’s going on behind closed doors,” said Scotty Sayers, Ben Crenshaw’s longtime manager and co-chair of the Muny Conservancy with Crenshaw. “They hope nine holes is what we settle for and they can develop the rest. But for a golf facility to thrive, to have it be a teaching facility and host competitive tournaments, it needs to be 18 holes.”
By the way, this year is the 100th anniversary of the course, established by the Lions Club. What better way to celebrate the land that in 2016 was designated as a civil rights landmark by the National Register of Historic Places than to announce a 100-year lease to the city?
Oh, yeah, it’s much more than a golf course.
It’s one of the first peacefully desegregated golf courses in America and became such in 1950 when two Black kids no older than 9 chose to play at Muny. After initially being stopped, they were given the famous go-ahead from Austin Mayor Taylor Glass. “Let them play,” he said.
“This was an enormous action by people of power,” Bledsoe said. “It was not just look the other way. They opened up the course. When African Americans found out they could play there, they drove in from all over the state. And this was 19 years before Julius Whittier,’ a tight end from San Antonio who became the first African American letterman for the UT football team.
Meanwhile, Heman Sweatt from Houston was becoming the first African American in the UT School of Law, thanks to a successful appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court after the university initially refused to admit him.
“This occurred in 1950, the same year Sweatt went to UT Law School and the dangers and fears he felt walking to law school,” Bledsoe said. “His first night, his tires were slashed. But he was supported by a group of white supporters who provided protection for him.’
That’s why Derrick Johnson, the national president and CEO of the NAACP, stopped by recently to declare his organization’s full support for saving Muny. He recognized the significance of preserving history and appreciating it and learning from it.
“Golf is a game of power, a vehicle that has been utilized to advance business, policy, and build relationships with some of the most influential individuals in our society,” Johnson said. “As we work to advance progress for our community, it is crucial that we preserve and create new pathways for Black America to have access to the game of golf.”
Amen. Are you listening, Texas?
Scotty Sayers, left, and Ben Crenshaw enjoy a laugh during the Imagine Muny gala at ACL Live’s Moody Theater on Sunday night. The event netted around $800,000 for renovations at Lions Municipal Golf Course. (Photo courtesy of the Muny Conservancy)
Lions, UT are at a historic crossroads
Hey, February just happens to be Black History Month, too. What better timing could there be to preserve a place in history? Like the Meadowood tobacco farm in Connecticut where a young Martin Luther King Jr. worked during summers and was inspired to become one of our nation’s biggest social activists. Like the Pullman National Monument in Chicago celebrating the birthplace of the first Black labor union. Like historical black districts and homes.
Others have joined the chorus of voices lending their support.
Muny Conservancy will sponsor a third annual, celebrity-filled gala March 24 with another live auction that has already raised more than $1 million. They need it to finance needed repairs such as paint jobs for the pro shop and a new roof, but it’s hard to go full bore to raise money without any assurances the course will survive.
Muny remains the most used public golf course in the city, with more than 65,000 rounds every year. Last year’s participation rose 6%. It’s also home to 124 golf tournaments a year and 58 nongolf events. Where would those be held?
Mayor Kirk Watson is on board. So is actor Kyle Chandler. Angela Garcia, the daughter of All-America quarterback Marty Akins, and husband Sergio endorse Save Muny. Heck, maybe Lions should invite Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift to get married on the Muny grounds.
And the number of supporters is growing.
Clearly, UT needs the money. Wink, wink. After all, the American-Statesman and USA Today recently reported that the school had generated $271 million in annual athletic revenue, including $122 million in profit from football alone. This is a school estimated to have a $42.3 billion endowment, second only to Harvard.
Muny has been recognized by the National Register of Historic Places as an important civil rights landmark. Consider that upwards of 95,000 sites in the country are designated as historically significant, and just 32 of them, including Muny, are dedicated to civil rights or Black causes.
Heck, former UT golf coach Tom Penick and his legendary brother, Harvey Penick, held Longhorns weekly golf practices at Muny for 30 years. Heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis got in a couple of rounds there. Ben Hogan has a hole named for him. Golf Hall of Famers Tom Kite and Crenshaw learned the game there.
We haven’t even discussed the enormous traffic gridlock that would result from a commercial development on the property.
We don’t need less green space in the city. We need more. It’s part of what makes Austin Austin. These sacred grounds are two years older than Zilker Park, for Pete’s sake.
“We’re hoping the community lets Texas know how important Muny is,” Bledsoe said. “This is something we want to keep. It will take that kind of outcry to really grab their attention. This course benefits everyone.”
History and heritage collide at this very public and significant intersection, and we wait to see what UT truly values as it prepares to join the SEC and tell those schools what Texas is all about.
“UT can come out looking like heroes,” Sayers said. “We want everybody to win.”
Negotiations between the university and the city are ongoing, and organizers admitted there’s plenty of work left.
AUSTIN, Texas — As soon as Verne Lundquist got the call, he knew he had to be part of the fun. Not just to enjoy the company of his buddies, many of whom he remembers from his time at Austin High School, but to help save a vital greenspace in the center of one of the nation’s hottest housing markets.
That’s why Lundquist – the 81-year-old sports broadcasting legend – was one of the many stars Sunday night at Imagine Muny, a Texas-sized gala at the Moody Theater made famous by the TV show Austin City Limits. The event, which organizers say netted around $800,000 to help restore Lions Municipal Golf Course, was a bona fide success in terms of fundraising, but perhaps even greater was the awareness the evening brought to a cause that’s been dragging out for decades.
For those who’ve missed the backstory, the 141 acres on which Muny sits are extremely valuable. The City of Austin has conducted stakeholder meetings, asking for public input on zoning for the area, and boyhood friends Ben Crenshaw and Scott Sayers put together the Muny Conservancy, hoping to purchase the area for a reasonable price and preserve it for years to come.
The parcel is part of the 500 acres of University of Texas-owned land known as the Brackenridge Tract, and is considered the first fully desegregated municipal course south of the Mason-Dixon line. The city has leased 140 acres for Muny since 1936 and pays UT about $500,000 a year. If the parties don’t come to an understanding, the university could be free to lease the property to another entity, develop it or sell it.
Lukas Nelson waves after performing during the Imagine Muny gala at ACL Live’s Moody Theater on Sunday night. Nelson joined Eric Church, Asleep at the Wheel and Jimmie Vaughan. (Photo by Tyler Schmitt for the Muny Conservancy.)
But the outpouring of support at the event – which included appearances by musicians Eric Church, Lukas Nelson and Asleep at the Wheel, as well as a surprise visit by Jimmie Vaughan – certainly might help to lean opinions. Among those who were part of a special video presentation were celebrities Luke Wilson and Kyle Chandler. Sports personalities on hand included former PGA Tour pro Mark Brooks and former TCU head football coach and Texas special assistant Gary Patterson.
“Just look at this event. You get some sense of what this golf course, this beautiful place, means to so many people in this city,” Lundquist said while musical acts rotated through the famous theater’s stage.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CaSzsbUFcr0/
Lundquist – whose famous calls at the Masters include Jack Nicklaus’ birdie putt on 17 in 1986 that gave him the lead and Tiger Woods’ dramatic chip-in birdie on the 16th hole in 2005 – admittedly doesn’t get around like he used to. The national broadcaster lives in picturesque Steamboat Springs, Colorado, but he and his wife, Nancy, purchased a small condo in Austin three years ago and he comes back to his hometown for at least a few months each year.
“I’ve known Scott Sayers and Ben Crenshaw for more years than they want me to admit,” Lundquist said, noting that his sister was a year behind Crenshaw in high school. “Whenever we’re back here, we want to be here to support this place. It’s an amazing undertaking. Really it is.”
Sayers, who helped coordinate the event, said it was a smashing success on multiple levels.
Scotty Sayers, left, and Ben Crenshaw enjoy a laugh during the Imagine Muny gala at ACL Live’s Moody Theater on Sunday night. The event netted around $800,000 for renovations to Lions Municipal Golf Course. (Photo by Tyler Schmitt for the Muny Conservancy.)
“The musical guests and the finish to the thing were as good as I’ve ever seen,” Sayers said. “And we did what we hoped to do financially, to be able to make improvements to Muny, which was important. But the awareness is the key – we need folks from the city and the university to both realize this isn’t something for a small subset of people, or just a few folks who are interested. This is a place for the entire community. I think this proved that.”
The conservancy hopes to partner with the city to keep Muny in the best shape possible before any decisions are made by the university on potential permanent uses for the property. Recently, a fleet of 62 new golf carts was introduced at the course and a new roof was constructed on the clubhouse, all with help from the city. The money raised at Imagine Muny will help with more renovations and improvements.
But the final decision is yet to come. Negotiations between the university and the city are ongoing, and Sayers admitted there’s plenty of work left.
“This is a critical stretch, for sure,” he said. “We just hope that whatever develops that we keep all 141 acres as greenspace. If the conservancy gets the course, and we hope that happens, renovations will take time, but will be worth it. It’s a place that just means too much to so many people.”
