Big Win for 'Johnny Golfer': Texas A&M Unveils New-and-Improved Campus Course

COLLEGE STATION, Texas -- For a day at least, the spotlight at Texas A&M wasn't on Johnny Football, aka Johnny Manziel, but on something almost as rare as winning a Heisman Trophy – a new campus golf course.

Texas A&M has a brand new golf course on campus, thanks to an extensive overhaul 

by: Aggie alum Jeff Blume

Last weekend, Texas A&M unveiled its new Campus Course, a par-71, 7,008-yard gem designed by one of its very own, Jeff Blume, a 1989 landscape architecture graduate.

Blume, who is based in the Houston area and worked with Robert von Hagge before opening his own firm in 1997, has quietly built a solid reputation as a designer. He puts this project near the top of his list of accomplishments, not only because his legacy will live on "hallowed ground," but because of the quality of the course.

Former Texas A&M and Houston Oiler quarterback Bucky Richardson pretty much spoke for everyone who played it for the first time last weekend when he said, "The golf course is a huge upgrade in every way. The Campus Course is something we can all be very proud of."

Indeed it is. It replaces the flat 6,800-yard Ralph Plummer design that had been there since 1952. With very little top soil on the old course, growing grass was problematic. It had seen its day and then some. 

Indeed it is. It replaces the flat 6,800-yard Ralph Plummer design that had been there since 1952. With very little top soil on the old course, growing grass was problematic. It had seen its day and then some.

So in came Blume and Houston businessman Robert Steele and Sterling Golf, which is a partner with the university on the $5 million course. They didn't cut any corners. In addition to a state of the art irrigation system, the course also got six inches of sand-capping, and it showed. In the little more than a year after the old course was shut down, the new Campus Course at Texas A&M grew in quickly, especially the Mini-Verde greens, which were fast and true, and, of course, a little firm.

As for the rest of it, Blume, who scouted out the classic courses in the Northeast for the project, gave it an early American look. There are 158 bunkers on the course, many of them clustered in the style of Charles B. Macdonald or Donald Ross.

"You don't have very much of that in Texas," said Blume, whose credits also include the much-heralded Grand Pines at Bentwater in the Houston area as well as Sterling Country Club.