In 2008, architect John Colligan started talking to the city of Arlington, Texas, about renovating its municipal Chester H. Ditto Golf Course. At that time, the golf economy was still riding a 15-year development boom, and upgrading city-owned courses had become commonplace.

When the Great Recession hit, an oversupplied golf course economy was greatly impacted. Just two years later, course closures would outnumber new openings for the first time in 30 years — a trend the industry has experienced every year since.

However, the city of Arlington has since become a poster child for the lucrative synergies linking sports and entertainment. While the Dallas Cowboys’ competitive fortunes have flagged somewhat, AT&T Stadium has been a boon to local business and municipal tax coffers, attracting concerts, conventions and sporting events eager to engage with the Cowboys brand.

Spurred on by this example, the Texas​ Rangers followed suit, and in November 2016, Arlington voters approved the use of tax dollars to pay up to $500 million toward a new baseball stadium, complete with retractable roof. The city will use revenue from a half-cent sales tax, 2 percent hotel-occupancy tax and 5 percent car-rental tax to fund its share, with the Rangers committed to pay any cost overruns. The $1.1 billion Globe Life Field is expected to open in time for the 2020 baseball season.

Meanwhile, site work on the new ballpark, as well as construction on the Texas Live! bar and restaurant complex next door, is underway on what were formerly parking lots. This 200,000-square-foot Texas Live! development will open sometime this summer, and a $150 million luxury Loews Hotel and convention center will follow suite in 2019. According to Colligan, what had been an on-again, off-again, slow-moving courtship with the city was transformed by these large-scale, public/private, sports/entertainment partnerships.

The Texas Rangers Golf Course
“It was 2014 when we started working with the city on a master plan,” says Colligan, an Arlington resident since 1974. “At the time, they hadn’t really said much about the new baseball stadium; in fact, the citizens approved it while we were working on construction documents for the golf course. But, we felt confident it would happen. There were rumors the Rangers would go to Dallas if they didn’t get a new stadium, and the city sure didn’t want to lose ’em.”

According to Gary Packan, Arlington’s assistant park director, the newly renovated golf course, funded by natural gas wells located within city parks and on its municipal courses, will open for play this July with a brand-new name: Texas Rangers Golf Club. Its $8.5 million price tag is small compared to the $500 million residents have committed to the Globe Life Field.

“People love their hometown sports; it’s become a significant business here,” Packan says. “The Rangers brand alone will help us reach people we typically would not reach through our marketing channels. We see a lot more opportunity here these days. If we can renovate and partner with other agencies to make this facility all it can be, that would really solidify an already stable golf operation — and anything we could generate above and beyond it gives us flexibility to reinvest.”

Texas Live! and the new Loews are just two of five Arlington hotels now in some stage of development, according to Decima Mullen with the Arlington Convention and Business Bureau. Originally, Packan and the city’s golf services manager, Greg Durante, had merely sought a piece of the tourist business that had developed around both the Cowboys and the Rangers. It was Colligan who first enlightened them to the larger possibilities with his redesign.

“I’m biased, but this is going to the best public golf course in all of Texas, certainly in the Dallas-Fort Worth area,” says Colligan, who credits his younger partner, Trey Kemp, with a revelatory rerouting strategy. Their design was ultimately constructed by Lincoln, Nebraska-based Landscapes Unlimited. “This was always a beautiful piece of property, but it will be a brand-new golf course. Landscapes moved 250,000 thousand cubic yards of material and only five of the original golf holes remain — the rest have been rerouted,” Colligan explains. “We relocated the clubhouse to get better views of the course, and we’ve created a practice facility that is better than 95 percent of the private clubs around here.”

The city owns and operates three additional golf properties: Tierra Verde, Meadowbrook Park and Lake Arlington. Tierra Verde is quite new but it’s not on the side of town where local hotels are sending all their golfing guests.

Durante adds: “Along with that, our clubhouse was small and aged — not conducive to tournaments and outings. We really didn’t have a place to meet or congregate, even though we had a tent. The new course and clubhouse will enable us to partner with hotels and compete for that business, especially tournaments and outings, which typically bring in higher revenue per player than normal play.”

Raising Our Profile
The Texas Rangers Baseball Club is the most important new partner in this endeavor. “The concept,” Packan says, “is that the Texas Rangers already have an image, a mystique. A lot of people already travel to Arlington to see the Rangers, and if they’re coming in for a weekend, they may want to play golf at this course because of its association with the Rangers. It’s not just golf. With our new banquet facility, they may want to have their wedding or 50th birthday party or graduation celebration here. This is the only Major League Baseball-associated golf course in the country.”

Packan and the city were inspired by the Cowboys Golf Club in nearby Grapevine. While privately owned, it partners and co-markets with the iconic NFL franchise in a variety of ways. Green fees at Cowboys GC are a whopping $180.

The new Texas Rangers GC may not achieve that lofty price point, but Durante believes weekend green fees will still occupy the high-end for municipal courses. In terms of marketing breadth, the Rangers’ relationship with its new eponymous golf course is arguably more extensive.

“We’re talking pocket schedules, programs, yearbook ads, first pitch opportunities, the ability to gift golf rounds in the Rangers gift shops, and we’ll do some co-op rental opportunities when they have a wedding package at their stadium — getting married on the field is popular,” Packan says. “They’ll provide memorabilia for promotional displays, get former players on property for events. We’re talking pregame videos [promoting Texas Rangers GC], using the Rangers logo in selling merchandize in our golf shop. They will move some of their tournaments over to us, help with social media...It’s going to really help us raise our profile.”

Hal Phillips is Managing Director for Mandarin Media.