ROCKWIND COMMUNITY LINKS

Hobbs, New Mexico

Rockwind Community Links upgrades an old municipal golf course built on a retired WWII Army Airfield into a new community-focused facility that promotes golf. With a challenging new 18-hole course, Par-3 course, driving range, and area for SNAG golf, the course attracts new and younger players to the game. To promote community use, the Clubhouse site was expanded to include a community lawn, generous flexible-use patio with a fire pit, and outdoor shade structure adjacent to the new Rockwind Grill. The community is encouraged to use a new 2.35 mile soft surface trail that weaves in and out of the native landscape along the perimeter of the new course. New trailheads with picnic areas blend in with the native arid Llano Estacado landscape and reveal elements of the site’s Airfield past. The result is a cohesive, unique golf course experience recognized by golf industry publications.

The renovation enabled the introduction of a new, more sustainable approach to golf course design. Irrigated areas were greatly reduced. A new, ½ mile open channel and lake (42 acre-feet capacity) holds treated effluent to irrigate the course. The site was graded to direct stormwater toward infiltration basins and landscaped areas. Many materials, some historic, were harvested from the site and reused: recycled asphalt served as base course material for the new trail, recycled concrete slabs were reused to line the new canal feature, old concrete footings from army barrack buildings are used as barriers and trail distance markers, and existing army building slabs were reused for trail segments and a new trailhead.

Team
Staples Golf, golf course design
Wilson + Co., civil engineering
Greenscape Methods, golf irrigation design
Halff Associates, irrigation design
David Teske, architecture

Awards
2015 ASCGA Design Excellence Recognition Program
2016 Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play