Scotsman David McClay Kidd, the son of a golf course superintendent who went on to become one of the biggest names in course design, is leaving his indelible mark on the rolling terrain of the Texas Hill Country.
Spurred by developer Areté Collective, Kidd—whose back catalog includes Oregon’s vaunted Bandon Dunes and the Castle course at St. Andrews—broke ground this month on his debut Lonestar state design, the centerpiece of Loraloma a private community situated within the 2,200 acre master planned Thomas Ranch, perched on a bluff overlooking where the Perdanales and Colorado Rivers converge that is 28 miles northwest of downtown Austin.
This scenic swath of Central and South Texas where spring-fed rivers cross rolling terrain traipsed across by white-tailed deer and blooming with bluebonnets is a golf bastion. Highlights of the overall area’s course offerings include Barton Creek, TPC San Antonio and Austin Country Club to name a few. Also in these parts is the Balcones Natural Wildlife Preserve bordering University of Texas Golf Club—a proving ground that produced a long list of PGA Tour standouts including Tom Kite, Ben Crenshaw, Jordan Spieth and Scottie Scheffler.
First Impressions
While McClay Kidd was familiar with the golf pedigree of the area, it was very much fresh territory for both him and his design and construction team. The lush scenery he encountered defied his preconceived notions, which he admits were framed from watching old Westerns.
“For a Scotsman, the only thing we know about Texas is that it’s where all the cowboy movies about the last stand at the Alamo and such were set which always seemed to be desert environments,” Kidd said.
He was pleasantly surprised when traveling from Austin toward the vicinity of Loraloma as the area’s vibrant scenery came into view. Upon reaching the site it didn’t take long to envision a golf course unfurling across this photogenic landscape with space for 12 of the 18 holes to be plotted along the ridge top overlooking the river below.
“I think any golf course designer would think ‘oh ya, this could work.’ You are on rolling terrain through oak trees overlooking water and the last time I did that it came out pretty well,” Kidd exclaimed.
As his design took root, some members of his team keenly noted that some of the holes almost had a Pebble Beach feel to them which is quite the statement for a course missing an ocean. But the vibe comes honestly when walking along a high jagged ridge top some 50-80 feet above the water with big broad views looking up and down the river.
“It reminded me of stuff I’ve done along coastlines even though we are hundreds of miles from the coast but it also reminded me of old golden age courses because the land is relatively subtle. The big oak trees are pretty majestic and the terrain is soft and rolling. It’s much more in keeping with the east coast parkland classic than it would be a Bandon Dunes—it’s not that,” Kidd said.
“Looking out across the landscape, there’s no denying that you’re in the Hill Country because you’re looking at hills for 50 miles in every direction,” he added.
Kidd’s arch design principal is to let the land take the lead and with Lorolama he’s working with a gorgeous blank canvas of unirrigated grazing land that has seen minimal use for decades. It won’t take much meddling at all to whip it into a golf course while preserving the native environment’s plethora of natural charms. The goals is to build a golf course that is authentic to its surroundings with as little contrivance as possible.
The mark of success in this endeavor is for the end result to look as if the golf course simply, in Kidd’s words, “floated down on top of the landscape” with no “shapes on the golf course that are jarring or alien to the eye.” That means accomplishing the feat with minimal earthworks and without the introduction of non-native flowering trees and plantings. While he feels this site does a lot of the heavy lifting naturally, there will be the task of removing choked shrubbery to let the big oaks breathe, along with clearing out rotted old fences. The most challenging aspect of the build will be solving for sections of soil covered limestone all over the property.
“But we’ll work our way through that and the golfer will never know—the rock will give way to grass and if we do our job right it will look like we didn’t do a lot of work to make it happen,” Kidd said.
Looks Matter
While the strategy and intricacies of a well-conceived golf course matter and are appreciated by players, when it comes down to it, the environment a track is situated in tends to be what people remember the most.
“If you’re playing Cypress Point or Augusta National if you are lucky enough, you are probably more in awe of the landscape than you are of the nuances of the golf design,” Kidd explained.
“There are not a whole lot of golfers out there shooting super low scores so being out in the great outdoors and enjoying a beautiful landscape I think is every bit as important as what you write down on the card,” he added
Kidd further emphasized, “I don’t think anybody that goes to Bandon Dunes, the best-known course I’ve ever done, brags about their score more than they brag about the enjoyment they had with their friends. They talk about the weather, the wind, the view and show you all the pictures.”
Loraloma’s initial slate of cottage, estate, villa and custom homesites start at $1.6 million. The 7,060-yard golf course is slated to be completed and open for preview play by end of 2024 with an official opening planned for Spring 2025.
Kidd has had a very productive year with his Dunas Course at Terras da Comporta opening for play earlier this month in Portugal and he just finished up GrayBull in the dune strewn Sandhills of Nebraska, the seventh Dormie Network club which is set to soft open late next summer. And also underway, he’s building another eighteen at Gamble Sands in Washington.
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