Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - Nine-hole Buccaneer Bay course looks pretty, plays dirty

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Wednesday, August 4, 1999

Nine-hole Buccaneer Bay course looks pretty, plays dirty

By Ruth Cochran-Escamilla
Caller-Times

ROCKPORT - The Buccaneer Bay Resort golf course plays like an iron fist in a velvet glove.
   Lofty oaks, quiet lakes and ponds, lush greenery and the quiet of the countryside give the executive nine-hole course beauty and an air of peacefulness.
   Narrow fairways, saddleback greens and those same lofty oaks and quiet ponds make each par 3 hole a formidable challenge. Since it opened 10 months ago, only three holes-in-one have been carded - two at the same hole.
   "I've been playing golf about nine years, and this is definitely a tough par 3," said Leo Olson of Rockport, who regularly plays Buccaneer Bay. "It's not wide open. It forces you to hit a straight shot."
   Owner T.J. Shank gets regular requests to cut down any number of oaks that force golfers to thread their shots through the eye of a needle.
   "I say, hit around it," Shank said. "I call it brain surgery golf. One slip and the patient's dead. You can look in the undergrowth and see dozens of golf balls."
   Not that they are easily retrievable. Poison ivy, thorny vines and brush discourage most golfers from such searches.
   Shank and his wife, Carol, salvaged the course from a practical jungle of overgrowth. The nine holes were built in 1975 to complement a subdivision, Shank said. But within a couple of years, the developer abandonded the subdivision and the course, along with a two-story clubhouse, swimming pool and tennis courts.
   The Shanks purchased the "resort" two years ago after learning that Carol's first husband, who had died of cancer, had purchased numerous home lots in the subdivision. When they traveled from their home in Austin to inspect the lots, they saw the run-down club and decided it would make a good investment.
   Momentary mental loss
   "I lost my mind temporarily, I guess," T.J. Shank said. "You couldn't see where the golf course was. The mosquitoes were so bad you could hardly get out of your vehicle. The place was a jungle. There were 8-foot sunflowers on the fairways. The greens were non-existent.
   "When we first came in you could almost smell the decay."
   So T.J., a former cop, and Carol, a retired teacher, set about refurbishing the resort. Sludge and 32 turtles were evicted from the swimming pool, which was heated for winter use. The tennis courts were resurfaced. The interior of the clubhouse was renovated.
   Though Carol was a former golfer, she left the 33-acre golf course to T.J. - a lifelong non-golfer. T.J. Shank immersed himself in the care and feeding of golf courses, attending seminars aimed at course superintendents and visiting courses throughout South Texas to study their design.
   Work to do
   He set about killing the jungle of growth clogging each hole, had irrigation lakes dragged to remove 20 years of silt and drilled five wells to replenish the lakes.
   Sand was hauled in to build up tee boxes, and undulating greens were designed for each of the nine holes. A 127-head sprinkler system was installed - which turned out to be imperative, Shank said, because during the first eight months when the grass was growing in, only a half inch of rain fell.
   The greens were sodded with champion Bermuda tiff, and the fairways are 419 Bermuda tiff. Five miles of electric fence were strung around the perimeter of the course to keep marauding feral hogs from rooting and wallowing in the new grass.
   The course has proved tricky to master. Par has been broken only once since it opened in October 1998. The average length of each hole is 160 yards, but the nine holes circle a two and a half acre lake, so water and trees affect every hole. Shank said the course had been open four months when 1,000 balls were found in the pond crossing hole No. 1.
   No. 9 is the longest at 232 yards. It takes 165 yards to clear a lake, and there is only a narrow alley between trees. The hole has been birdied once and parred twice. Hole No. 2 is extemely narrow off the tee box with trees dictating a straight shot. No. 4 has a lake to the left and trees to the right.
   Tricky 5th
   No. 5 appears tricky, but two holes-in-one have been scored. An oak with spreading branches separates the tee and the green. Both aces were scored by lofting shots with a pitching wedge over the tree.
   On No. 8, golfers face a tree to the right just off the tee box and a tree overhanging the left side of the green.
   "Wind is a tricky factor. You won't feel the wind and you don't know it until the ball gets above the trees and changes direction," Shank said.
   "This course has no mercy. They ask me, 'Why did you name it Buccaneer Bay?' I said, 'You're gonna think I'm a pirate. It'll steal all your golf balls.' "
   Though it actually was named Buccaneer Bay because of the area's pirate history and because the resort is situated between Copano and Aransas bays, golfers say the name fits.
   "It's a very pleasant course to play," said Fulton golfer Floyd Helm, "but you pay for your mistakes."

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