Wild Spring Dunes brings old-school golf to East Texas in new development (2024)

It will be a year until players are sinking putts on its greens, but shovels will sink into the ground far sooner at East Texas’ newest golf getaway.

Popular developer Dream Golf is expected to break ground later this fall on Wild Spring Dunes, a 2,400-acre public destination golf resort just north of Nacogdoches accessible in under three hours by car from both Dallas and Houston. If all goes according to plan, golfers should have a completed set of fairways and flags to test out in September 2025 with residential and hospitality developments soon to follow.

According to Michael Keiser, one of the project’s developers, building in East Texas is not only a matter of tapping into a local market lacking high-end courses that aren’t padlocked by private club membership. He says the landscape is ideal for the stripped-down, old-school, Scottish-links style of golf he wants to bring to consumers.

“We weren’t out there trying to penetrate the Texas market,” Keiser said. “This project sort of fell on our lap, and the site was so good that we thought we had to make a move.”

Keiser says that Dream Golf chooses its sites based primarily on natural beauty and the availability of sandy ground, a pair of conditions that enable it to create unique-looking courses on malleable terrain with good drainage. On top of its sandy underlayer, the property is covered with ravines, creeks and old-growth pine forests, giving its architects plenty to tinker with.

One of those architects is Tom Doak, a fabled designer who has worked with the Keiser family since 1994. He claims eight courses ranked in the global top 100 by Golf Digest, two of which are on Dream Golf properties in Oregon and Wisconsin.

“It’s just got a different feel than anything I’ve worked on in the past,” Doak said. “That’s the attraction to me — it’s not like the last 10 courses I’ve built.”

Doak was originally hooked to work on the property for Dallas-based businessman Brett Messerall, who soon connected with Keiser and his brother Chris by chance and convinced them to visit the property. Keiser fell in love with the location and took charge of the project, keeping hold of Doak as one of his chief architects.

Doak’s 18-hole route will be the site’s first, but Dream Golf has been in discussion with designers Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore for a potential second course on the property if Doak’s is successful.

Scotty Sayers, a manager for Coore and Crenshaw, said in an email that they have visited the property and are encouraged by its potential but will “continue to study the situation” and “see if Wild Spring Dunes will fit into our future schedule.”

To fund the venture, Dream Golf is relying on a founders program for select individuals to invest in the property’s development alongside future benefits of reserved tee times and preferred real estate selection. Keiser hopes to bring 200 founders — who each pay between $65,000 and $75,000 — on board to get the course done on schedule. Doak says the appetite to invest is strong.

“It’s only a wonderful coincidence that this fabulous site happens to be so close to so many people who are in need of more great golf,” Keiser said. “That does not drive our decision-making. The reason we’re doing it is because of the quality of the site, and if it were 10 hours, 15 hours from Dallas, we’d still be doing it because the site is just so good.”