New Texas Rangers Golf Club is the pride of Arlington

ARLINGTON, Texas -- Colligan Golf Design is based in Arlington. Principle John Colligan has lived in Arlington since 1974, and he and lead architect Trey Kemp are both graduates of the University of Texas at Arlington.

So when it came time to bid for the job of replacing the old Ditto Course for the city of Arlington, quite naturally Colligan Golf Design wanted the job.

And why shouldn't they have been hired? They've done work for some 20 municipalities around Texas already, so they know the ropes. But more importantly, their work has been stellar, highlighted by some of the best munis in the state like Stevens Park in Dallas and Brackenridge Park (Old Brack) in San Antonio.

Texas Rangers Golf Club, themed for the major league baseball team that plays its home games just two miles away, could be their best work yet, Colligan and Kemp say. And we would have to agree.

"Hopefully one of the things that helped us get the job is we wanted this to be the go-to golf course in the Metroplex," Colligan said. "It's not that far from DFW Airport. So when you get off the plane, if you've got your sticks, come over here. You're going to want to play this golf course."

Culminating a process that began five years ago, which included two years of construction and grow-in, Texas Rangers Golf Club had its soft opening in February 2019. It is one of the most playable and fun courses in Texas. This par-72 plays from 4,874 yards from the forward tees to 7,010 yards, from the back tees. It has large fairways and greens, a smattering on beautifully sculpted natural looking bunkers, a few elevated tees and a great variety of memorable holes.

It's a totally new design from the old Ditto Course, a Dick Nugent/Ken Killian design that opened in 1982. Ditto, named for the man who donated land for the original project, wasn't player friendly. As Colligan points out, that was probably no fault of the architects. With a limited budget, the old course needed those crowned fairways to drain, but that also meant that golfers had a difficult time holding the narrow fairways, often finding the trees and brush, which meant many players spent a lot of time looking for balls.

The new course is sans hundreds of trees, with a much more open look. The roughly 65 bunkers are mostly shallow with a natural look that harkens back to early American architecture. Every hole is different and the greens all have openings for players to run the ball up if need be. More than $2 million dollars (of a total of $8 million for the course, $24 million overall) was spent on drainage and irrigation alone, so you can expect good conditions at Texas Rangers GC.

The course has many highlights, including the on-deck circle before you get to the first tee. That's right; golfers here can hit a few drives into the range, right next to the first tee off a Texas Rangers logoed on-deck circle, the perfect warm-up for the opening hole, a 589-yard par-5. There are other baseball reminders, too, like yardage markers on home plates, and each hole has a nickname adopted from baseball terms like "line drive," "pop-up" and "power ally."

The course works its way around a large irrigation lake in the middle, highlighted by the par-4 fifth, where golfers carry a large portion of the lake to a dual fairway. The par 3s vary in length from the 132-yard sixth (which has the largest green on the course at 8,000 square feet) to the 192-yard 15^th. The course culminates with the reachable par-5 18^th, which plays 532 yards from the tips.

Per the city of Arlington, Colligan Golf Design had to design a course that was more than 7,000 yards so it could conduct high-level competitive tournaments, and the city wanted a nice water feature, which it got next to the 18^th green, which has a pond fed by cascading water right of the green.

And because it's named after the Rangers, don't be surprised if you see a few major league baseball players out at the course from time to time. In exchange for the naming rights, the Rangers are granted tee times for themselves and visiting players.

Texas Rangers also has a new 23-acre practice facility, which includes a fully-grassed range, short-game area and practice hole. A golf academy is planned for the near future as is a new 25,000-square foot clubhouse. The new clubhouse, expected to be completed toward the end of the 2019, will house memorabilia from the Texas Rangers, similar to the way Cowboys Golf Club, located a few miles away in Grapevine, honors the local NFL team.

The base green fee rate for $87 for non-residents and $69.50 for Arlington residents. Rates include cart fees. For weekends, it's $95.25/$119. Seniors (62 and over) get a 20 percent discount and members of the Frequent Player Program (annual fee of $100) receive a 15 percent discount. Rates are also dynamic, which means they can go up and down depending on demand during the year. Twilight rates are also available.