Dallas Golf Blog

Its Time for a Change: The Evolution of a Logo

Once upon a time a man had a dream.  A dream of opening a golf repair shop and owning his own business.  When he started, he said to himself, "I need a symbol.  A logo that represents my company."  So, he sat down with pen and paper (no photoshop at the time) and started to play around with ideas.  Soon after his first doodlings, he decided on this:

An original font, a unique blend of a golf ball and an artists feel.  For 15 years this font represented Dallas Golf on signs, billboards, letterheads, and a fledgling website.

In 2000, a couple of younger folks thought the logo needed an update.  We took a blend of the original golf ball design and an updated font.  We took the original green into a hot red.  We settled on this:

This logo has served us proudly for the better part of 7 years now.  Although we still used the original mark on many things, the new logo represented us in the digital media.  We used it on our website, eBay ads, and anywhere else on the internet our name appeared.  The problem with it was that we never fully adopted it as a "retail" company.  It was like we were living separate lives.  In the stores, we still carried the old logo on business cards, letters, signs, and displays. 

Recently, we made the decision to overhaul the image of Dallas Golf.  For 25 years, we've been known as a small, one owner operation, with a small, one owner operation image.  Maybe we had no image, which is even worse than having a bad one.  I think a famous tennis player once said "Image is everything".  I guess since those ads have been off the air for 10 years, the message finally sunk in.

With that little logo history, I'd like to introduce you to the NEW Dallas Golf.  Its hip, its modern, its fast, its efficient.  Its powerful, its smart, its classy, its aggressive.  We like to think this new mark says everything about who we are as a company. 

We're not small.  We're not an "old golf shop".  We are a fully functional, modern day, walking, talking, breathing golf company.  No, we don't have a 20 foot high ceiling and a tennis court in our store.  No, we don't have a fancy song on our on hold music.  No, we don't have a huge store next to the Wal-Mart on your way home.   However, we do carry the latest technology, we do offer the best service, and we do have the best prices.  We supply golf products to people all over the world through our little website.  We have over 100,000 positive feedbacks on eBay.  And we now think we have a new symbol that represents all of that.   

Weibring Updates TPC Las Colinas Course

by Art Stricklin

 

Local Champions Tour player D.A. Weibring, the architect for the massive renovations ongoing on the TPC-Las Colinas course at the Four Seasons Resort, recently gave the Salesmanship Club a progress report, saying he hoped the project would be ready to host the 2008 Byron Nelson Championship in late April.

“I’m a glass half full type guy, not glass half empty and I think with a good team and some prayers we’re going to get it done,” he told a packed crowd at the club’s weekly luncheon for the organizers and operators of the annual North Texas PGA Tour event.

The multi-million project ran into delays because of 45 lost days during to heavy rain this summer. Instead of sprigging the new fairways, they will be sodded in long rolls of turf. Bent grass greens will be laid in by mid-September.

“I’d say September 15 is a critical time for us to get the greens in. We’d like to have everything ready by October to grow in for next year,” Weibring said. “Can we recover? I think we can, but we have back-up plans as well.”

Weibring, who’s Plano company, Golf Resources Group, won the right to oversee the project, which began at the end of the 2007 tournament, said they were making major changes on 8 to 10 holes and moving around something on every hole.

Along with the new bentgrass greens, the changes include taking away the double green at holes five and nine and making the par 4 11^th a true drivable par 4, with large pot bunkers on both sides of the fairway.

“I wanted to do this for one reason, for Byron and what he means to all of us. I feel pressure every day to get it right,” he added.

Someone has to win, right ?

Its one of my favorite days of the year.  Sunday at The Open.  Wake up early, flip on the TV, and catch breakfast listening to the ABC boys describe the action.  As I sat in the living room yesterday at 7am, ready to watch Sergio Garcia try to hold on to a 3-shot lead in The Open, I was prepared to be watching the chase for second, as Sergio continued to distance himself from the field.  Early on, I was right, as he built a 4 shot lead over a melting Steve Stricker.  I even got up, went outside for a minute to stretch my legs, and took time to grab some play time with my son.  When I came back, however, things felt different.  Sergio made a couple of bogeys, missed a couple of putts that he hadn't missed all week, some kid from Argentina can't make a par for making birdies followed by double bogey, and a crazy Irishman is making a charge at the lead.  

For a minute, things looked exciting, like someone is going to have to make a fantastic finish to win this.  And it was an exciting finish, but not in a "great champion" sort of way.  Instead, on the 18th hole, where it all matters, Paddy Harrington tried to repeat the '99 finish by hitting two balls in the "creek" (that's what its called in Texas), and Sergio laid up so far off the tee, that he could barely reach the green side bunker.  It seemed no one wanted to WIN. 

So, here we are, the moment of truth arrives for Sergio.  An 8 foot, downhiller, that maybe slides a little right, to win The Open (scary for me & you when a $2 skin is on the line).  The instant he hit it, you could tell he "hoped" it would go in.  He WISHED it off the putter face.  He didn't step up and MAKE IT go in, like Tiger or Jack. He tried to "eek" it in, like he putted it on marble toward a thimble.  And when it didn't go in, his reaction said "I KNEW I couldn't make that".  With all of that work all week, to play so great, hit his driver where no one else had all week.  To be so bold and aggressive when no one else would, when he had the chance to snatch the tournament away, he backed up.  He backed down.  The pressure of the win, the responsibility of being a Major Champion, was all too great for Sergio. 

After the playoff, which wasn't even necessary, even Padraig commented that he didn't really think he won until after the final putt went in.  He said he never pictured himself winning.  I guess that's why he has ONE major and Tiger has 12.  Tiger pictures himself holding the trophy before he ever tees off.  Well, that and the fact that Tiger is imminently more talented than any one else.  Funny how that didn't work out this week, though.  I say congratulations to Padraig Harrington, for snatching victory from Sergio, whether he wanted to or not. 

One strange equipment side note:  In 1999 Paul Lawrie was a Wilson Staff player.  He used a Wilson Bag, Irons, Driver, etc.  But, he used an Odyssey Putter.  I think it was a Dual Force model with the old black face.  This week, at the SAME golf course, when a European hasn't won a major since Carnoustie 1999, Padraig Harrington, who is also a Wilson Staff player, also used an Odyssey Putter to win.  So the moral of the story is that you should get a Wilson Staff contract and switch to an Odyssey putter and you could become a European.  Right?  Oh, wait I think I mixed that up somehow...

CSmith

You can read more and see video at ESPN.com, here

North Texas Golfers beware: The Dye Stonebridge Beast is Back

By Art Stricklin

 Like a brute in need of a touch up, Perry Dye recently returned to McKinney to upgrade the Stonebridge Ranch Dye Course which was rightly acclaimed as the toughest in North Texas when it open in the 1980s and is looking forward to claiming that title once again.

 “With every course, you need to come back and revise and renew every 20 years or so. That’s what we were happy to do with this course which my dad always enjoyed doing,” Dye said at the recent grand re-opening of the par 72, water and railroad tie-filed brute in the Stonebridge Ranch Development.

             During his brief

North Texas

visit, Dye toured the course which opened in May, after being shut down for nearly six months to resurface the greens, the bunkers and update the generally classic look.

 “I remember when dad first saw this layout in the late 1980s and all the acreage and all the vision of the founders and he sent me down here to get it (contract) done and get it started,” Perry Dye said of his famous dad Pete, who brought his full compliment of trademark railroad ties, menacing water, high rough and tangled fescue to the highly rated layout.

 The course has a rating of 77.6 and a slope of 146, still one of the highest in the state in both categories.

 “When he started to work down here and saw how good it could be, he fired me and took over the project for himself,” Perry Dye said with a laugh. “It was one of the first projects I was ever fired from, but one of the ones I’m also proudest of.

 “I’m happy to be back to have a chance of revising and bringing this course back to where it once was.”

 Since it opened in 1988, along with a nearby 27 hole facility done by

Arthur

Hills

, Stonebridge has become host to many famous events.

  In 1989, it was the site of the PGA Tour Nashville Country Music Pro-Am followed by the Texas Amateur Championship in 1990 and the Texas Tour Tournament in 1993.

 Perhaps the most famous event was the NCAA Division I Golf Championship where Justin Leonard, then at the

University

of

Texas

, shot a final day 64 in unusual calm conditions to capture the individual title, and former Tour Star Notah Begay led Stanford to the team championship.

 In more recent years, it hosted the Texas State Open and the PGA Tour Second Stage Qualifier. Now with the new additions from Perry Dye, clubs officials are hopefully the big events will return again to the Dye facility which includes a massive stone clubhouse.

 “The word will get out how good this is and we want people to come back and see it, and then the events will start to come back,” said longtime Director of Golf Perry Arthur.

 “We will have a PGA Tour pre-qualifier this year and the word will get out from there.”

 Dye, who played 18 holes at his new course, said the biggest changes on the Dye layout are new, stronger grasses, updated for the 21^st century, along with new sand and better drainage in all the nearly 100 bunkers along with a clearer look around the course.

 “It’s not any easier, and I’m sure they don’t want it to be, but its nicer and brings it back to its original state.”

 North Texas Golfers beware; The Dye Stonebridge Beast is Back.

 

 

Dallas, Texas Golfers Can Play PGA Tour Courses

By

Art Stricklin

 

 Try this on for real sports fantasy. Touch football in the Orange Bowl with your buddies. Not a chance. Shagging fly balls in the outfield at Yankee Stadium. The possibilities are slim and none. Shooting hoops at the local NBA arena. Only until the police arrive to take you away.

 But playing the same PGA Tour course as Tiger Woods. Hitting the same shots from the same spots as John Daly or Phil Mickelson. No problem at all. In fact, it happens every day thanks to the public’s full participation opportunity in world class golf.

 This year, the PGA Tour consisting of the world’s greatest golfers, Woods, Daly, Mickelson, etc., will tee it up for millions every week. But 11 of the courses the pros use during their season are open to the general public the other 51 weeks of the year.

 Amateur golfers of all shapes, sizes and playing abilities have the same chance to play the same shots under the same conditions as their golfing heroes most weeks of the year.

           “It’s the chance to challenge yourself in some way and see how you and your game measure up,” said Paul Earnest, Director of Golf at the TPC (Tournament Players Course) at Los Colinas, part of the Four Seasons Resort and Club in Irving, just outside of Dallas, and the annual home of the PGA Tour’s EDS Byron Nelson Championship.

 In fact, the trend of the golfing public taking on the pro’s personal playground is especially Texas-sized as three of the four PGA Tour events in the Lone Star State, Byron Nelson, the Shell Houston Open and the LaCantera Texas Open in San Antonio are held on public courses open to all except for one professionals-only week.

 “It’s a part of what we do and a chance to see what the greatest players in the world face and what kind of challenge they are under when they play here,” said Shell Houston Open tournament director Steve Timms.

 The lure of any golfer with a paid greens fee and a tee time playing the same course as the PGA Tour’s best is a powerful one to resist for the most avid of golfers.

 “We probably do about 30,000 rounds a year out here,” said Earnest, “and a great majority of those are during the spring (the Nelson Championship is traditionally held in mid-May), especially the Sunday before and the week after the tournament.

 “That’s one of the great allures of our sport is to play the same courses the pros do. You can’t play catch at Yankee Stadium or football at the Rose Bowl, but you can come out here and see how you match shot for shot with Tiger Woods.”

 One golfer who never misses a chance to play in the footprints of the pros is

Dallas

businessman Bob Swanson, who has been playing at the TPC-Four Season and neighboring private

Cottonwood

Valley

course since 1988.

 “It’s just an awesome experience at play in the post-Nelson (a tournament traditionally held the Monday after the PGA Tour event). They have the pins set up where they were during the tournament on Sunday and small flags out tomark where that year’s champion hit every shot and what type of club he used to get there,” Swanson said.

 Swanson said most golfers who play the same course as the pros know they could never match them on a head-to-head battle, but the courses allow them a fleeting glimmer of hope if even for a brief moment.

 “If you have one good hole and see they made a bogey on that hole, you think, ‘I just beat the guy who won the tournament on that hole.’”

 He had a similar experience last year when he took his 15-year-old son Ryan out to play in the post-Nelson, the day after Vijay Singh had captured the Nelson Championship.

 “My son loves to play and can hit it pretty good and when we get to the par 4 15^th hole he hits a really good drive. When we get up to the ball, we see it’s just about five yards from where Vijay Singh hit his drive.

 “My son was so excited he said, ‘Dad I almost drove it as far as Vijay Singh! Then we bent down and looked at the card and it said Vijay had just used a 5-wood to get it there and my son had hit his driver as hard as he could. That shows just how good those pros are. The rough is so deep after the tournament, you might not even find you ball in the grass and if you do, you just have to chip it out. They’re blasting the ball everywhere.”

 The Four Seasons, who operates the four-star luxury hotel next door to the golf course, has even created the Champions Golf Package, which includes a round of golf at the TPC tournament course and a night in the beautiful hotel accommodations, nice enough to soothe any aches and pains from the tough golf layout.

 The Champions Golf Package is especially popular in the spring around the tournament time, but is available all year long for amateur golf dreamers.

 “Everybody has seen a famous or infamous shot from the Byron Nelson Championship on TV and when they come out here, that’s usually the one they want to try,” Earnest said.

 “One year, Fred Couples was near the lead when he came to the par 3 17^th and bounced his tee shot off the rocks in front of the green and into the water and that seems to hold a fascination for players coming out here to play.

 “It’s just great to see all the holes and see how well the players play them,” Swanson added. “The players are remarkable when they come out here and shoot a low number and we’re just happy if we have one good shot or one good hole.”

 The Houston Open has been on the PGA Tour schedule for more than 50 years with a strong public presence for most of those five decades.

 “We have a championship course for our players to play on, but we want to make it accessible to everyone,” said Evan Johansen, CEO of Redstone Golf Management which operates Redstone Golf Club, site of the annual PGA Tour’s Shell Houston Open.

 In fact, when the first of two Redstone courses opened in 2002 designed by Peter Jacobsen and Jim Hardy, it was kept public so any player could experience what the pros go through. When the second par 72 Redstone course opened in 2005, designed by Rees Jones and David Toms, the original layout became private and the new course remains public access for all.

 The Houston Open was first played at public Memorial Park in 1947 and 1951-63 before moving over to the resort TPC-Woodlands course from 1985-2002.

 “To us having a public course to play on is very important,” Johansen said. “Before coming out here, we looked at a renovated Memorial to keep allowing people to play like pros.”

 Like the TPC-Las Colinas and Four Seasons Resort outside of

Dallas

, Redstone stages some big events before and after the Houston Open for eager

Southeast Texas

amateurs.

 “If you’ve seen a great shot on TV or in person, you want to try to make the same shot even if you don’t have the same chance,” Johansen said. “We keep the course looking like a Tour course with signs and tee markers and historical information. We want them to feel like they are on a Tour course and feel like they’re a pro if even for a day.”

 Because of the warm winter weather usually present in

Houston

, Timms said the Redstone course is especially popular in the February-March-April timeframe right before the tournament. That’s when the course is being toughened for the one week professionals stay, the public players are often in for quite a challenge.

 “This can be a very hard golf course and especially unforgiving off the tee,” Timms said. “We have some high rough and we over-seed for a very lush experience. We want the amateurs to know what the players are going through, but with this course without houses and lots of vacant land it may look more like the

Carolinas

rather than

Houston

.”

 No matter the challenge or the damage to their scorecard or their ego, Dallas and Houston golfers line up in droves to play the same course as their golfing heroes matching them shot for shot or divot for divot in a search for public golfing glory.

 

 

NEARBY AIRPORT CHOICES

 

 Looking for a quick airport golfing fix during a layout in Dallas or Houston? Thankfully there are plenty of choices just a good driver and three-wood combination from the airport gates.

 

DFW

 

BearCreek Golf Course: Certainly the closest of the golfing options as it’s literally inside the

DFW

Airport

borders. There are two excellent public course options, a North and South course which were built in the late 1970s. They have been recently renovated, spruced up and are ready for a quick 9 or 18 holes before heading back to your next destination.

 

Dallas

Cowboys Golf Club: The only NFL-themed golf course in the

U.S.

, this is an 18-hole blue and silver tribute to all things Cowboys. Architect Jeffrey Brauer crafted a very interesting public layout (even for non-Cowboys fans) which meanders through the rolling hills with plenty of water and trees. Each tee box contains a plaque with an historic Cowboys moment and head former coach Bill Parcells has been known to play through slower groups during his off-season.

 

 

George Bush Intercontinental

 

 Tour 18: This was one of the original and highly successful replica golf courses in the U.S. Owners brilliantly took some of the most famous holes in golf and exactingly crafted a copy just up the highway from the

Houston

airport. Highlights include Augusta National’s Amen Corner and the TPC-Sawgrass Island Green.

 

Cypresswood: A fine 54-hole public facility will give you quite a variety of public golf during a brief layover. Plenty of native

Southeast Texas

pines, man made water and Texas-sized bunkers will have you celebrating or commiserating your final score as you head back to the big airport.

 

 

Tiger Woods Has It All Now

Great read from ESPN on Tiger's tournament, new baby Sam, and politics:

ESPN GOLF

By Jason Sobel
ESPN.com

FedEx presents The Dallas Golf 2007 Fall Classic

Benefiting The Northern Texas PGA Junior Golf Foundation

Woodbridge Golf Club
October 17, 2006 1:00 pm Shotgun Start
Format: To Be Determined (Something Fun)

$125 per player

Team Prizes and Hole Prizes
Lunch by Whataburger (11-12:30)
Tournament Prizes provided by Cleveland Golf
Gifts for each player

 

Get there early and warm up with all of the latest equipment. Manufacturers will be on site from 9 am ‘til Noon with demo clubs for you to try. Participating manufacturers include Cleveland, Callaway, Nike, Titleist, Nickent, Hogan, Taylor Made, Wilson, Cobra and Adams.

 

The Northern Texas PGA Junior Golf Foundation annually teaches thousands of children the positive aspects that accompany learning and playing the game of golf. Integrity, discipline and social responsibility are lessons applied not only to golf, but life in general. Whether it is conducting tournaments, introducing kids to the game or providing access to golf facilities, the Northern Texas PGA Junior Golf Foundation continually works to promote the game and improve the lives of more than 20,000 children through golf each year.

 

Sign up in either of our locations.

Richardson (972.231.9399) or Garland (972.270.0989)

Click Here to Enter Online