It is, perhaps, a little sad that, because of its intensely private nature, relatively few people will get to see the course, because not only is it probably the best first course by a modern architect that I have seen (I have not been to Bandon Dunes, perhaps the obvious alternative candidate for this accolade), but it is also a living case study for the future of golf design and construction. The course rating is 0.0 and it has a slope rating of 0 on Blue grass. Adam Lawrence visits a linksy haven on the Gulf Coast. If the wolf has not selected a partner when the last player tees off, the last player is automatically on the wolf’s team. But the point, I think, is made: the course is astounding. Sixth hole, 190 yards; Nuzzo’s approach to architecture is illuminated here where he desires to do something original without borrowing too closely from holes done elsewhere. The bold line over the lake can yield an eagle putt or a golfer muttering as he prepares to tee three. As his first new build design job, Nuzzo has naturally thrown his heart and soul into the project, and as a result, has been able to identify small-scale features that could create outstanding golf holes without major construction.
A single trap, small and deep, guards the central approach to the green. Out left is another huge expanse of short grass, but anyone actively choosing to go that way is putting real pressure on his wedge game, because the green is banked into a big mound on that side, with a deep bunker cut into its face. Fifth hole, 425 yards; While the impressive Inferno bunker complex, cut into the hillside, dominates the eye from the tee, the real scene stealer lies ahead. The fairways are generally really wide, the bunkering is limited, it’s not overly long and there are limitless ground options around the greens. St Andrews, Texas? Typical of the rest of the course, the fifth fairway is wide but the challenge stiffens at the green.

The golfer who plays safely right with his first two shots faces this approach to a green that rolls away from him. Ultimately, the task of imitating those random bumps, humps, and hallows across much of the property fell to Jacob Cope and Joe Hancock, a task at which they excelled. A couple of holes later you realize you’re not going to have much success unless you learn to play to the appropriate places. Stand on the first tee at Wolf Point and you will behold perhaps the single widest expanse of short grass in the world of golf. From lake left to fairway edge way right must easily be 200 yards: it makes the first and eighteenth at St Andrews look narrow! A row of diagonal bunkers that could have been placed by Harry Colt creates a speed slot down the left side. In the case that a player elected to go Lone Wolf, he or she earns two points, and in the case a player goes Blind Lone Wolf, he or she earns three points. Yet, because of the firm turf and cunning slopes of the green complex, anywhere other than position A (which will move according to the location of the flag) will make for a tricky approach; strategic golf at its purest. The 9-hole Airport course at the Wolf Point Airport Golf Club facility in Wolf Point, features yards of golf from the longest tees for a par of 0. The only significant piece of earthworks was the excavation of the 14-acre lake that sits at the heart of the property, and the consequent creation of the hill on which the first tee and clubhouse sit (a job carried out over a ten week period between harvests, by a group of local farmers who brought their own equipment, thus keeping costs for the entire course to an astoundingly low US$3m). But there’s lots of great courses that fit the same description. Examples of this truth are legion around the golf course, but two will suffice: the amazing E-shaped green of the par three fifteenth hole, where small natural swales cutting into the green area create a putting surface devilish in its challenges and the dominating, though shallow, false front of the one shot twelfth, where, because of the fallaway nature of the rest of the green, a front pin can only sensibly be accessed by a knockdown shot with a short iron that pitches in the fronting hollow and runs up the slope.